


Do Not Reach Beyond the Sky

by TheEarlyKat



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Freeform, Original Player Characters, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other additional characters to be added, Retelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-02-02 11:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 44,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12725967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEarlyKat/pseuds/TheEarlyKat
Summary: Fahleon Lavellan is several things, a Dalish elf, a deserter Warden, but Herald of Andraste is not of them. The Creators have played a cruel trick if anyone is to believe he played some part of the Conclave even if the evidence is a rift-sealing mark on his hand. Where he does fit, he doesn't know and isn't fond of finding out.A retelling of Inquisition.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I took down the previous attempt of the same thing as I decided to do it for NaNoWriMo and I kind of wished I'd kept the summary saved. I'll work on it. In the meantime, I have several chapters completed and editied all over again.

Fahleon unrolled the parchment stuffed deep in his pockets, as if the creases from countless such unfoldings read more easily than the crooked and messy letters written illegibly across it. That was, if he could read the words in the first place. He passed his thumb over the winged insignia marking the corner instead. That, at least, held meaning. The griffin marked the bottom corner of the letter as a Warden missive, maybe meant to keep watch over the information inside and make a hasty and safe journey to the right hands. Fahleon thought it more likely it was used to get the message across for those with no knowledge of their letters. Those like him.

It didn't work nearly as well as it was supposed to.

It's meaning was lost to him, and it left him with several impressions to make up that required the Wardens to get into contact with him. Such as another Blight? Something worse that had them seeking help from deserters? A warning that they were finally coming for his head? A further study, no matter how hard he strained his eyes, revealed nothing more than the last one, and he balled it up once more. He left his hands in his pockets to let his fingers warm in the thick fur lining his pants. There was a shawl made from an elk pelt gracing the shoulders of the long jacket wrapped tight around him, and beneath that were treated leathers to keep the worst of the wet from reaching to the final layer of an insulating tunic. Despite it all, the cold Frostback wind was hindered by none of it. It was unforgiving on his skin and his eyes, and he squinted up at the mountain peaks between the sun glare and the tears meant to keep his from drying, but it only froze along his eyelashes and made it worse.

Above him, Ada had no such issues. She was at home in the air, combating the buffeting, icy winds with powerful flaps of her wings, her feathers ruffed up against the cold to keep her warm at such heights. The small animals, so used to having the snow steppes to themselves, were exposed to her talons and she only grew warmer under her new layer of fat. He told her so with a grunt when she grew tired of fighting the wind and landed on her customary perch on his shoulder. He pitched under her weight and cursed when he flung his hands out before him to catch his fall. What heat they'd gained from the residual warmth in his pants was lost, and he mourned the tips of his fingers. The black tint of his nails would take days to go away, and that was only if he found a decent place to shelter. Decent, meaning desperate. He'd take a rock slightly larger them himself, a bundle of sticks, and a chance strike of lightening to kindle it if it meant one moment of respite from the threat of frostbite.

The last time he remembered having been warm was giving his misgivings to his Keeper. He'd preformed the rite by the clan's central bonfire, formally asking for her permission to leave, to travel on his own, to seek his own answers to his own questions. A lie, if there ever was a truth, and he knew the Keeper saw it for what it was. Yet she hadn't denied his request or dismissed his real goal. Fahleon wondered if she'd seen the letter and knew its meaning. If it was a warrant for his life, the Wardens would once again bring nothing but misfortune to the clan. Fahleon had seen his family go through enough without adding another massacre. They'd already lost countless elves to the cursed ruins in the Brecillian Forest and the corrupted mirror that slept within, the darkspawn attacks, and the skirmishes with the werewolves. The move to the Free Marches was meant to end all that, and if his leaving meant it would - he'd lie, he'd run, he'd risk ridicule, isolation, and banishment if it meant they'd stay safe.

He'd travel all the way to Weisshaupt and tell the First Warden just what he thought of the letter of his if it meant his clan was left alone. 

That had been....weeks? Months? An age ago - and it certainly felt like it. He felt decades old, with his joints aching and strength sapping. Fereldan's tree-line felt like a lifetime ago, and the Frostback plains another. He hoped if the Wardens were looking for him, they'd at least give him the mercy of a quick beheading rather than the slow end of freezing to death.

Fahleon drew in a breath and straightened. Ada settled more firmly on his shoulder and he basked in the sudden flame of heat her fat lent to his lean frame. A shiver racked his body in search of more, and she shifted from foot to foot. He eyed her with a sharp look and hoped it got the message across.

Another age's walk, an hour in truth, most likely, but the burn in his legs and the ache in his shoulders had him swearing on an age, led him to a castle. Or a church, a hidden prison, a foundry that cooked up Dalish elves for food - whatever it was, Wardens and slavers be damned he needed shelter. Damned be the dozen trails of footprints that had traveled the same path - and recently too, he noticed, if the depth of his own prints matched against theirs was any measure. Some were large and rounded, from armored boots, and others were smaller with more shapely soles from leathers and furs. It was possible a Warden or two had been about the area, but Fahleon thought it more likely it was a band of hunters or mercenaries in similar shape as him. Both less and more likely to kill him, then, if they were was exhausted and hungry as he was.

Fahleon scratched the ruff of Ada's neck with a finer and whistled a short note to her. She answered with a clack of her beak, narrowly missing his digit, and took off. Her weight shoved him forward and he forced himself to keep his feet. He waited until she circled high and when she made no more sound, he moved forward, though no less wary and no less careful. He slung the bow from his back for good measure. 

The closer he moved, the louder the snow crunched underfoot, the breath hissing between his clenched teeth, and the rumble beneath the ground. Fahleon paused and furrowed his brow. He tapped the earth with his heel and felt nothing more than the faint shift of unsteady stone somewhere beneath the snowfall. He flicked his eyes up to Ada, but she'd flown higher than he could track, but there was no sign of an avalanche anywhere further up the mountains nearby. He turned, and found the rest of the landscape empty.

He turned back around and found himself wrong.

The landscape was wrong. It shifted and warped, one moment the castle he'd headed for and the next something broken and flecked with red. Someone was screaming, and he thought it only himself until he heard his ears ring with a hundred voices. He slapped his hands over his hears, dropping his bow before dropping himself to his knees as a noise louder than the building falling apart tore through his head.

"Bring me the sacrifice."

Fahleon threw himself flat to the snow to get away from the chunks of rock thrown from the wreckage. Something struck his head, forcing his face deeper into the snow until all he could feel was cold and colder. Something hot spilled across his eyes and he watched the white stain pink until it faded into black.

* * *

Something was off when he awoke, and Fahleon started with the pain pounding from his head to radiate down his neck. It masked the pinch of skin along his wrists, and he blinked down at the manacles snapped tightly shut around them. He blinked again, hard, to clear his vision of the dark spots still floating somewhere between blood loss and a concussion, but the wooden locks still held his arms together in front of him.

"You finally wake," the man attached to the hand gripping him sneered. Fahleon breathed out slow rather than make a fool of himself trying to speak. His tongue felt thick in his mouth, and he needed no more humiliation thrown at him than what he already had, captured and bound and dragged. Dragged to where, he wondered, briefly, before the thought drifted off to wherever lost thoughts did when they went unanswered. It must have been a lonely and fearful place, he decided, feeling lonely and afraid in his weakness and confusion. His bow would have made him feel something more than an animal, but it was buried deep under the snow by now. He'd dropped it...

Fahleon paused and took in the mountain spread out before him. It spread, rather than peaked. Where he'd shuffled slow and awkward for shelter towards a castle nestled between the mountaintops, the crags were leveled and the snow cleaned off them to expose the stone beneath, wet with snow and...blood. It dotted what was left standing of the castle and pooled in the depressions of its fallen pieces. Bodies littered the edges of the ruined stonework, tossed as easily as the snow falling from the sky. Fahleon's breath quickened at the sight, shocked, eyes widening and flicking between the castle and the ring of broken pieces, trying to place how it happened and when. The number of deaths didn't bother him, not when he knew none of their names or their stories, but he knew his - and there was a very large gap between the part when he'd fallen and the part where he opened his eyes.

"Had a nice nap, did you?" the man asked, snapping Fahleon out of his stupor. Fahleon turned his head towards him - either too slow or still too stupid, or maybe the man was simply cruel. He kicked him for good measure with a solid hit of his booted feet into Fahleon's stomach. He wheezed as the air was knocked from him, but the man yanked at his manacles to keep it upright. It twisted his arms at an angle that should have ached, but it burned, hot and deep and worth screaming over. Fahleon couldn't find room to hate the man chaining and beating him, nor could he find a space between the pain to care he was crying out in front of a shem. There was only fire and an unforgiving numbness that made his fingertips tingle when he was released.

Fahleon jerked his arms towards himself when the man made another reach for him. It earned him a second kick, but he would take the dull impact to his side over whatever fire burned with every tug of his arms. It made the man pause, and Fahleon snorted. How must he have looked, with his furs clung tight to his skin with snow damp and blood, curled in on himself in anger and pain and fear. He felt his ears twitch against his head and bared his teeth to complete the picture of the rabid, Dalish elf.

The stalemate didn't last long. A gag was shoved between his teeth. His nostrils flared, but he caught only the scent of old blood and icy winds, nothing quite like the sharp, sweet scent of any sleeping potion or poultice. It was merely only meant to keep him quiet, not to make him docile. He wouldn't make this easy then.

His captor wasn't a Warden. The emblem emblazoned on his chest resembled nothing like the stamp dotting the corner of the message he'd received from them. The pointed sword that was there, ringed in all its firey glory, was still familiar. A symbol of the humans' Maker marked his as a templar - one of the Chantry's guard dogs. The mountain was an odd place to find one, but maybe the castle had been a church after all.

Good riddance, then. The world needed less of their kind running a muck, holding secret meetings and binding innocent elves just for kicks...and giving kicks.

Punches and jerks, too, Fahleon amended, as the templar grabbed a hold of his manacles once more and jerked him to his feet. He went willingly, if only to save himself the pain of resisting, and immediately fell forward onto his knees. He grinned behind the gag as the man grunted in surprise at the sudden resistance. When he was forced upright again, he dug his heels into the ground and made the man drag him, enjoying every noise of effort and frustration he heard. It was going to be a long way down the mountains at this rate, but he wasn't the one on a deadline.

A poor choice of words, as they passed more limp and twisted bodies, some burned to the bone and others with skin turned black. How had he survived? He didn't remember falling deep enough into the snow to keep himself safe from the worst of...whatever had happened. 

His captor had some idea, what with his mumblings of murder and war. There'd been an attack, then.

"How could you have done this? Just...killed them all?"

An attack by him - a wild accusation. That he couldn't deny with the gag in his mouth. He settled for a snort and a sharp shake of his head, instead, but the man kept his eyes on the deceased like he wanted to make note of every one of their faces. His own had started to look green after the first dozen. Fahleon watched his eyes harden with resolve and his jaw clenched. "The Seeker will get answers out of you. She'll be the one to deal with you, elf."

Fahleon rolled his eyes. He hoped she found what she was looking for before he got to her, for she certainly wouldn't get what she wanted from him.


	2. Chapter 2

The dark, damp, dank cell wasn't the first - and it wasn't going to be the last, Fahleon felt - time he'd been held captive by shems. It was the first time he was in control of his capture, whether those standing outside of the bars knew it or not. It made the damn capture itself almost bearable enough to remain upright and still, all signs pointing to confused and docile. Fahleon held the pieces in his hands - if he would call the jagged line running the length of his palm a piece. He'd use it to his advantage, whether he knew how much leverage he had.

An infection, he called it, with no other word for the glowing, green cut leaking magic. It didn't bleed like any wound he'd known. Where ruby red should have beaded and spilled over was a flow of energy he'd felt only around the mages of his clan, and rather than the cold pull the air and prickle against his skin he'd come to associate with Fade weaving, he felt the magic swell from inside him. Somewhere, just under his skin, it came a hot and itching pain pulsing deep within the muscles of his hand. It lanced up his arm with every flex of his wrist, a sharp spike that followed the lines of his veins to end at his shoulder. The wooden manacles twisted his wrists until his fingers were numbed from pain, and he wasn't sure whether to be thankful for the new, much shinier versions that limited such movement.

Not that any thanks of his would be appreciated. 

There was one torch lit just outside of his cell to aid the eyes of the soldiers that guarded him. In the ruddy glare of flickering light, he caught one man for each corner of the cell, and another three pairs along the corridor outside. Two were posted at the gate of his bars, two more further down the hall, and another at the start of a flight of stairs, leading upwards to another row of jail cells or the castle proper. Unless he could discern and provide what his captors wished of him, there was little chance of him finding out how far deep he was. The swords carried at their hips, bare from their sheaths already, made Fahleon twitch. Hands came to rest on pommels and the answer was very clear - they wanted him dead. Or worse. Left behind, forgotten, to rot as long as took.

Blighted shems. They jumped to conclusions faster than a fox on a rabbit, not knowing if the rabbit was even in its hole. They'd found him on the mountain, the only one still alive and conscious, and deemed him the cause without wondering what he was doing there in the first place. Half of him believed it was because he was an elf. Half of him believed they'd done the right thing, taking in the only witness to give answers. Fahleon more firmly believed it had to do with the point of his ears.

He lifted his chin to meet the nervous eyes of one of guards, looking away only when a bright light flashed from the stairwell to sting his dark-adjusted eyes. A matching flash of light burst from his palm, and when Fahleon would see past the spots in his eyes, two women had entered his cell - one with her sword already drawn. He fisted his hands.

"We should have killed you," she said the moment her eyes landed on him. Her threat was not empty even as she sheathed her blade. "Everyone is dead because of you." The accusation was old the first time he heard it, and he rolled his eyes. She snarled at his silence, lunging forward to grab at his hand as if she could startle an admittance from him. He grit his teeth instead as he was jerked forward onto his knees. "Explain this!"

He answered when the fury in her eyes burned too hot for him to look at. "I can't."

Her sneer turned incredulous and she threw his arm down with all of the power of her frustration. "What do you mean, 'you can't'?"

He rubbed at is wrists, where he could through the manacles, to rid himself of her touch. A lie wouldn't do, and he had no half-truths well enough planned to convince her. Not yet. "I don't know what 'this' is. I don't know how it got there." He flexed his fingers, wincing at the sparks of magic. "I don't know how I got there."

It wasn't what she wanted to hear from the stiff set of her shoulders. She lunched again, and Fahleon expected the second attack. He dodged, but the second woman was close behind him and he couldn't move far enough out of the way to keep the sharp fingers stretching towards him from scratching against his neck. He bared his teeth at her, a bad move but one that made him feel marginally better. It only made her all the more angry. He pushed his luck and spat. 

"Cassandra." The second woman finally spoke up, and it halted the slap Fahleon was sure he'd received. He grinned, all teeth, at the woman holding him and she threw him down with a scoff. The second woman watched him with pursed lips, and Fahleon raised his eyes to her while he drew himself back into a sitting position. He nodded when he was settled. "Do you remember what happened?"

"No," he started, and turned his head away when she folded her hands behind her back, evidently content to wait as long as she had to for answers. He felt content to let her. What answers she was looking for wouldn't be found, not here and not now, but he wasn't sitting in a cell to make her happy. It would be a long moment of silence if she wished to wait for the holes in his memory to fill and lies to settle where they didn't. He let it stretch on a moment longer even after that. This arranged show, ending in his death, would at least feel like success when she shoved the sword through his chest with the anger and frustration he'd caused her.

"The Wardens sent word to me," he finally decided on. The sudden surprise that twitched across Cassandra's face encouraged him on, and he had to work to keep a growing smile off his face. Did he still has his papers on him? "I was on my way to Weisshaupt and caught in a storm. I only wanted a roof over my head. I did get it, when the building I headed for...exploded. I don't remember after that, until I woke up in chains." In the shadows and shaded by the hood of her cloak, he saw her face darken and a nerve in her forehead twitched. 

"You're a Warden," she said, dragging the word out. Cassandra looked over her shoulder to the second woman and found only a shrug. Fahleon bit the inside of his cheek to stop a smile. He cleared his face when her gaze returned. "You know nothing of what's happened? About their disappearance? Nothing about the Conclave? The temple?"

"No." Unless that had been the information contained in the letter. News of missing Wardens could have been important enough to warrant seeking out even the most debased deserter. The temple she spoke of must have been the castle he'd headed for, until he'd tripped or fallen or attacked and woken from a darkness loud with screams within the Frostback Mountains. They cried out, high and loud, and different enough from the screech of his hunting partner to stand out. Fahleon tensed. The blanks in his memory were too wide to remember where Ada had gone, if she'd been with him when he was dragged off the mountain or escaped before. He let out a slow, an attempt to calm himself, and clenched his fists. He needed to ask a few questions of his own.

"Where's Ada," he demanded, and made a note to save the look of confusion for a later time. There was more worry than room in his stomach for satisfaction at seeing their cold, impassive masks broken. He pushed, rising up to his feet though the sound of metal on metal and fearful gasps. He didn't ask a second time - he demanded. "Where is she."

"There was no one with you when you were found."

"My partner. My bird."

"Ah..." The woman glanced over her shoulder and Cassandra stepped forward to whisper something. Fahleon twitched and strained his ears for any hint, and caught only a light laugh. He scowled, and the woman matched him with a smile. "Cassandra will lead you to the forward camp. There, you can see the consequences of what took place at the Conclave. And your...partner."

Her tone set him on edge. Apprehension filled him when she gestured for the door to the cell. He eyed the guards and their hands on their swords, but none reached for them any further than they already had. He curled his lip and a growl escaped at a touch of fingers on his back, guiding him down the hall to the stairs. He was no fool to attempt an escape, and less so with little idea of awaited him back above the earth. 

A great, tearing hole in the sky hadn't been it. 

"Something, isn't it?" Cassandra asked, and Fahleon wouldn't let her catch him off guard with the shake in his voice. High in the mountains, the one he'd been dragged off, was covered in light - wavering green light, a shade so similar to the color leaking from the mark in his skin it made him sick. Events connected in his mind, and he whirled to face Cassandra. The mountain, exploding into light and with him on it, bestowing the mark while killing hundreds. She nodded, face tight. "We call it the Breach. There are many such rifts occurring throughout the world, but this is the largest." She motioned to his hand. "It is slowly expanding across the sky and it is slowing killing you. But it may also stop it."

He met her gaze. "You still think I did this."

"I have my suspicions, but it is not me you should be worried about." She started forward and Fahleon had no choice but to follow. A makeshift camp had been set up along the bridge connecting the prison behind him and the mountain steps ahead. Activity ceased as workers, soldiers, and servants alike paused to take in the elf. He hunched his shoulders and glowered at the stone path. "They have already decided your guilt." 

Fahleon didn't respond., and she continued, a moment later, when they passed across the bridge to open snowy fields. Tension leeched out of him with every step away from the crowd until he walked forward as steady as he could with his hands bound, confidence in every footfall and a straightness to his shoulders with no glares to weight them down. Aside, of course, Cassandra's, and her eyes made him lift even his chin in challenge. Let her believe he thought little of her judgment and sense of justice. He would not buckle. Her frown deepened and his mouth quirked.

"That is where we found you, near what was the Temple of Sacred Ashes. It is there no longer, because of-" she halted her accusations with a strained look. "Because of the explosion that caused the Breach."

"Creators," he cursed, under his breath, and the great tear pulsed as if called upon. Energy struck down like lightening to strike the ground before their feet in the same instance burning pain pulsed up his arm. The mark reached for its creator, pulling his hand up high even as his knees were forced to the ground. He watched the earth roll and warp with the Fade wrestling against the mortal world through watery eyes, and a demon clawed its way out of the air. Cassandra finally bore her sword for battle. 

"Stay behind me," she shouted before jumping into the fray. 

Fahleon didn't need to be told twice. His arm shook to much with pain and weakness to hold anything solid enough to act as an weapon, and he trusted his shaking legs even less. If it saved him Cassandra's further ire, he would submit to the humiliation of inaction. Until a second demon found is way through the Fade and everything was a weapon. The stones by his feet, a thick branch further to the tree line, a young and unused bow resting by crates that had yet to be pulled into the camp. It was a challenge to knock an arrow with his hands tied, but he was never one for an easy end. The demon neared and Fahleon drew the arrow in his hand high above his head, tensed his arm, and stabbed it through the eye of the beast. The mark burned and he roared a challenge over it. 

Cassandra was louder. "Put that down!"

Pain and the sharp vision of near death sharpened his words into a snarl. "You think I'd need a weapon to kill?"

Uncertainty turned her steely eyes into glass for just a moment, and when she blinked, they were dark and hard again. "I will remember you didn't run," was her only apology, and she removed the manacles from him. She watched him close as he rolled his wrists and tested the flex of the bowstring. He watched the Breach grow and shook his hand out when the mark snapped.

"Let's get this over with."


	3. Chapter 3

He could have run. He should have run. Why hadn't he run the moment Cassandra unbound his hands? With the bow in his hands and leagues of open landscape, he'd have made it halfway back to his clan before he was found. If he was found, Fahleon reminded himself. He surely be dead if he was. Or dead if he left at all, if Cassandra's warning about the mark's spread on his hand was more than the well crafted lie he took it for. It worked well to tether his close to her and her cause. There was always the chance he wasn't the savior she spoke of, that he was just the scapegoat and this mission put upon him some elaborate ruse to convince him. It was working, he hated to admit. The thought that this was true, that he'd die if he didn't follow, was enough to make him hesitate. 

Ada was still missing, too. He hated to think of her conditions. Was she caged like some song bird? Was she injured and hurting from the blast or had she been riding the high winds and avoided it? He needed to know and he wished Cassandra would walk faster - but the snow impeded both of their strides. He wished the storm would pass. He wished Cassandra would glare at anything besides him. Most of all, he wished for his bow back.

Not that one currently in his hands wasn't a bow. It was, by all means, a bow. It was, by all comparison to his previous one, not a bow. It would throw an arrow or two as well as any similar weapon, but without the same strength behind it. The wood was too young, too untested; no hands had yet to wear down the grain and it fit uncomfortably in his grasp as he twisted his hands about the back. It only drew his mind back to the magic wound in his palm, and the situation at hand. In all manner of the term.

Demons screamed and they only grew louder as he followed the rocky path winding through the snowy hills after Cassandra and Fahleon's vision doubled to the castle in the mountains. Ten years had passed, it felt, since then, and he still couldn't convince himself it was real. Although the woman warrior was, convinced at least of his fault. The raw skin around his wrists was certainly real. As was the snow melting a chilly line down his neck and the splinters digging into his thumb as he adjusted his grip on his weapon. He though, maybe, if he could familarize himself with this he'd feel more confident about running around a spirit infested woodland to defeat an enemy hanging in midair.

Andruil guide his arrows, and Elgar'nan preserve his anger. He'd need all the help he could get.

He was wearing his own patience thin trying to mark the bow's limits. Cassandra's glare turned darker in frustration with every flex of his arms, and he did it again just to watch her brows twitch. There was a sudden clarity in his anxieties, a moment where he controlled the events about him, and he did it a third time to make sure it was real. Her mouth thinned and Fahleon felt something set back into its rightful place. His chest warmed and he felt himself straighten.

When sounds of battle reached his ears, Fahleon felt more excitement than fear. It was a chance to prove to himself that these things could die, that he was still his own power, and he knocked an arrow on the next pull of the string, ready to take on anything that laid beyond the cresting ridge. The sky was lit green from the light of the Breach above. Fahleon could feel it, even from down there, the air rolling and warping with its leaking energy. It felt like static against his hair, and it made his arms tingle from his shoulders down to the tips of his fingers. It pooled in his palm, growing warmer and hotter until he dropped the arrow before it set aflame. Fahleon clutched his hand tight to his chest until he could stand it no longer. He shoved it deep into the snow and grit his teeth as the cold set in but didn't quench the fire flickering just under his skin. To his horror it sparked, and the pop of light startled him into throwing his arm out as far from his chest as it could go.

Magic leaked from it and Fahleon felt where the air grew hot and thin as the Fade pressed so close he could almost touch where it broke through the Veil. It felt like so many cracks in a looking glass, smooth yet scratched, and Fahleon drew his arm back close to himself as he eyed the tear in the air with wary eyes. He scrambled to his feet and nearly stumbled again in his attempt to back away from it..

He sucked in a breath before he spoke, not daring to let her hear him gasping. 

"What is that?" An arrow could not pierce the air itself. A blade could no more cut through a cloud and make it bleed than it could kill magic. No fist, no kick, no physical blow, either, would land its mark, and the realization of such a foe made the mark feel so much heavier until he felt he couldn't his arms up any longer. He let them dangle at his sides. It was no wonder, now, why Cassandra had not beat him further. She couldn't risk ruining the only weapon capable of defeating a monster such as this.

"A rift. It is only a fraction of what we need to seal," she answered, and Fahleon felt no relief at her words. This scratch, this elgar'vian, in the air wasn't the Breach. The tear in the Veil that couldn't be struck wasn't their goal. There was something larger, something worse, and it was just as impossible to mar as this. Fahleon drew in a breath and let it out, slow.

Cassandra squared her shoulders and marched forward without pausing a moment to let him think, and for a second time Fahleon found himself wanting to thank her. He bit his tongue in his haste to stop himself and spat out the taste of blood. She wouldn't get a word from him, not unless it was a choice curse of two.

"There are people fighting up ahead that we must help. Move," she demanded, he bounded silently after her.

He caught up with her as she leaped over the crumbled wall of a forgotten keep. Beyond it was a horde of demons, and the men defending themselves against them those she must have wanted to help. Fahleon watched them slash and stab and do fine work on their own, until another elgar'vian lit up the tower in a wash of sickening light. Another wave of demons joined what was left of the first.

"We must close it!" An elf shouted his odd battle cry in the midst of preparing himself for the second assault. Fahleon's ears twitched as the other's eyes found his and held them. The crackle of the rift light up his face, bare of hair and tattoos and Fahleon looked away as his mark answered, as it did, with a pop of its own. The elf's eyes shifted just slightly to watch it. Fahleon curled his lip. He'd had enough of Cassandra's attention to desire another sort of interest in himself.

He jumped down into the fray to lose himself in blood lust, instead. He tore an arrow from the pouch at his side and dropped it in his haste. He snarled and grabbed another one, aiming the bow at the nearest demon and yanking on the string with the full force of his grievances. The shot missed its target as the mark popped and sparked with another pulse from the Fade rift to jerk his hand first one way and then another. He grit his teeth and tensed his arm before the second shot, spitting out a curse when the arrow only clipped the shoulder of the demon, passing over the muscle to embed itself in the mortar of the far wall. A particularly sharp rock would have done the trick better than the useless shape of wood in his hands. A knife would have fared him better. Running from it all the first time really should have been his first course of action.

He whirled from a clawed strike and pressed himself into a corner of the tower to brace his arm against one of the walls and line up another arrow at a demon dogging Cassandra's heels. 

She'd held her own well enough against the demons. She'd locked a tall, spindly, and very elusive one in place and still managed to note his chance in position in the battle. Behind her, a dwarf weaved in and out of the fray, jumping in one moment to release an arrow from an unusual bow before disappearing in the moment of activity to reload in the safety outside the fray. The elf - a mage, Fahleon noticed, now, was walking across the snow banks straight towards him. Fahleon leveled an arrow at his chest and snarled when it was knocked out of the way. He'd had enough strangers' hands on him.

The mage reached for his arm and he turned to the side with a growl, only to have the elf spin him with another grab to take hold of his hand from behind. There was little emotion in the elf's face as he met Fahleon's snarl.

"Please. Before more demons come through," he said, and a tightness that sounded of worry and exhaustion betrayed his calm exterior. Fahleon cared little of the elf's endeavor but for the tight grip around his wrist. His plea was no excuse for the hand wrapped around the skin the manacles has rubbed raw. He cried out when the elf dragged his arm forward, close to the scratch in the sky. The heat in his palm finally boiled over to explode in a wave of force that sent his shoulder to aching.

"What did you do to me?" Fahleon demanded. His arm was numb and didn't respond when he tried to drop it from where it still pointed at the closing rift. Heat and magic and something else entirely poured from the wound on his hand. His other braced his shoulder before it could pop from the joint. The mark crackled once more, weaker, and the rift answered with one of it's own before it snapped shut from its own resounding force. The mage let go of Fahleon's arm and sparks danced up to his neck when it swung loosely at his side.

"I did nothing," the elf said, and Fahleon had to disagree. He'd added to his growing list of questions. "You did."

"This did," he countered, and he turned his hand over to look at the wound. The skin around it was red and swollen and he had to resist the urge to pick at the blisters forming.

The elf nodded, only halfheartedly conceding. "If that makes it easier to understand, then yes. Whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand. If they are alike, I believed that mark able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach's wake."

"Is that right," Fahleon asked, picking up on the smug note in the mage's tone. There was no such awe in his own voice.

Cassandra neared, eager and wide eyed. She picked it up the sense wonder, and it grated on his ears to hear. "This means it could close the Breach itself."

"Quite possibly." The elf didn't look away from Fahelon when he answered. "It seems you hold our salvation in the palm of your hand."

"Fantastic." The word had been on Fahleon's tongue, but it wasn't his voice that uttered it. The dwarf, finished packing away the strange contraption he used as a bow said for him, and Fahleon nodded at him in offhand agreement. "I thought we'd get to be ass deep in demon hell forever. Varric," he continued, in an introduction as smooth as his beardless face, breathless, sweat, and covered in whatever gore that came from demons that went pop. "Rogue, story-teller, unwelcome tag-along, and professional at reading a room."

Fahleon felt the corner of his mouth quirk upwards, and he pulled it back down with some effort. "Nice bow."

The way the dwarf laughed as his eyes roamed the young wood in Fahleon's hands made him feel incompetent. "Isn't she? Bianca and I have been through a lot together, and it doesn't look like we'll be ending our relationship anytime soon."

"Absolutely not," Cassandra said. 

"Don't knock the offered help, Seeker," Varric interrupted with a word and a wink before she could say any more. "You need me down there in the valley. Your men aren't in control anymore." 

The air felt even colder with Cassandra's hot glare turned on someone else for a change, and he shivered at the cold look the dwarf returned her. It warmed up the longer they stared at each other and he was impressed, if not a little uneasy, as Cassandra gave in first. She still made her displeasure known in a low noise in the back of her throat, but Varric wasn't phased.

It left Fahleon alone with the elf that thought himself special.

"My name is Solas, if there are to be any further introductions. I'm pleased you still yet live." Fahleon couldn't say he felt the same.

"He means he kept that mark on your hand from killing you while you slept," Varric explained, over his shoulder as he labored across the snow piles and over what remained of the castle's door to another path through the mountains. 

Fahleon shook out his arm, feeling a buzz under his skin that had little to do with the magic now residing there. "Fantastic."


	4. Chapter 4

Cassandra surrounded herself with strange company - and she was strange enough on her own. She was fairly tolerant of the dwarf she'd shown herself to hate. She showed him more compassion than she had ever had for him. Varric chatted constantly about everything from the wet of his socks to the part of his hair, and not once did Cassandra raise a hand against him. It was only by the Creators' divine intervention that he spoke with no intention of being truly heard that kept Fahleon's own hands clenched tight at his sides. It was easier, and with less consequence, to tune out Varric's sudden and vicious hatred towards hills, and the background buzz was easier on his ears than another clap to his head. It was still loud enough to keep any thoughts at bay, and Fahleon found a headache pound at the forefront of his mind at the growing frustration of not not knowing where he was and where he was going.

Solas was even stranger, and the way Fahleon gravitated towards him so easily was unnerving. Outside of Fahleon himself, he was the only elf he'd met since leaving the clan and he felt almost safer with another of his kin nearby and that wasn't odd. His magic buzzed along the lines of the mark in a way that was almost pleasant after the burn of power it took to close the rift, and that wasn't it either. It was his complaints about apostasy and spirits that were almost welcomed in his soft tone, and Fahleon caught himself with his head tilted to pick up every gentle word. Fahleon wouldn't call it soothing - he wasn't foolish enough to believe he could relax enough around Cassandra and her disapproval, but he was finding it easier to go along with her demands so long as Solas did. That unnerved him. How easily he approved of Solas, as bare as he was of the vallaslin that would mark him as Dalish. 

The mage caught him off guard again with a chuckle. He'd been staring and wandered every closer, and Fahleon busied himself with checking the number of arrows left in the pouch at his hip to keep his face away from the mage's direct line of vision. As if he could reminds, he didn't remark his embarrassment, but he did bring up the Dalish. Fahleon frowned at that.

"You're very far from you clan. Did they send you here?" Solas asked. Despite his own warning to himself, the answer was ready on his tongue and he pursed his lips to keep it from jumping past them. If he could read minds, Solas would already know the truth of his lie. He toyed with the fletched arrows a moment longer and flicked his eyes to Cassandra. She was out of earshot, still engrossed in not listening to Varric, but he continued with his story with a strong thought of the truth. Just in case.

"The Wardens sought for me." He watched Solas' face but there was no sudden realization that brightened his face any more than the waning sunlight already did, but his smile did grow a fraction. Fahleon's brow furrowed.

"The Wardens? Now that's an interesting turn. You are not what I expected." 

Fahleon's nod was hesitant and slow. Did he read minds or not, or was he only laughing at the stupidity on his face? "You say that like you know them," he said, even slower. There was nothing behind the red of cold and windburn, not a trace of a hidden tattoo. The way he held his arms behind his back, folded and in the way of casting fast, and stepped so sure of himself even with the snow blinding them all at every footfall spoke of a confidence and a comfort of being surrounded by beings not of his kind. It puzzled him to no end, and Fahleon was not fond of puzzles. He used elven magic and knew some of the Dalish culture. That should have been enough but there was something he wasn't saying.

"I have wandered many roads in my time and crossed paths with your people on more than one occasion, but I do not know them personally. They are not my people, and I do not consider myself Dalish, if that was your question," Solas confirmed for him, without even having to ask. 

There. There was that feeling of unease, hot and heavy in the center of his chest, and Fahleon let the disappointment remind him of the lesson he should have held close - that no one here was a friend to him. They all had their agenda, all of which included using him until he wasn't needed. 

His lip curled and Solas nodded, like he wanted to acknowledge his anger, as if he needed it to be recognized. Fahleon felt a snarl well up in the back of his throat, but he'd walked to Cassandra, as straight and proud as any human. Fahleon didn't weave any path near him and his stomach churned if he neared any closer. So that was what the polite laughs were for. Solas wore no marks because he had no need of them, not when he was only playing at elven. He could say he didn't see the Dalish as his people, but it was the comfort around Cassandra that truly spoke for it. As if any elf could feel truly at ease around shems. Anger clouded his eyes until a hand on his shoulder stopped him from walking over the dwarf. His skin prickled under the touch and he jerked away with a growl. Varric drew his hand back to himself and raised both, palms out and fingers splayed empty.

"No need to bite, we're all friends here. Or, well, maybe we're not ready to roast chestnuts over a fire, but no one's stabbing each other," Varric said, and he knocked a thumb back over his shoulder. "Don't let Chuckles get to you. He's a weird one - weirder, I'd say, with all the shit that comes out of his mouth - but he means well. If he didn't, he wouldn't have tried so hard to keep you alive and jumping."

Fahleon frowned. It didn't mean he had to like Solas.

Varric snapped his fingers and Fahleon twitched.

"Shit! Smiles!" Fahleon tossed his gaze to the snow to check the path ahead, but saw no mar in the white to watch out for. He lifted a corner of his mouth in case Varric had asked for a demonstration rather than a warning, and frowned deeper when Varric laughed. He'd had enough of that. "Don't hurt yourself - it's just a nickname. Solas over there is Chuckles, and Cassandra is...well, Cassandra is Cassandra. Seeker when she's not around because she will tie me up to a chair and threaten to stab me. That's not what friends do." He raised his voice loud enough for her to hear and Fahleon caught a disgruntled snort. He furrowed his brow, still at a loss. Varric scratched at his cheek. "See, well, Solas has a weird laugh so his nickname is fitting, and I haven't seen you do anything but frown so it's the ironic sort of funny."

"It's funny," Fahleon repeated, with much less enthusiasm, but it didn't stop Varric from clapping him on the shoulder again with encouragement. He squeezed for a moment before wisely letting go. "You'll get the hang of it. Another Dalish I knew didn't understand for a whle either. Daisy was her nickname; as pretty and innocent as a flower until she cut her arms for blood magic."

Fahleon nearly tripped over himself. "Merrill?"

"Shit, Smiles," Varric crowed, face split into a wide grin. "Was she...what was that word she used. Laddle-something."

Recognition startled something that rumbles like a laugh out of his chest. "Lethalan." Varric clapped his hands together with that matter settled, and began another. The sting Solas' not quite betrayal brought upon with his distancing was closed with Varric's wild tale about his clan mate after her banishment, and Fahleon didn't mind his insistent prattle even as the weather soured further and the snow grew deeper. He matched pace with the dwarf and refused to meet Cassandra's eyes, even when she announced their approach to the camp. Varric's last sentence was left only for the wind to hear as Fahleon pushed forward in staggered strides towards it. Ada was just up ahead, and whether he bothered to listen to the dwarf or not wouldn't have mattered. Blood rushed hot and loud in his ears as he followed the screeches.

She was caged like she was nothing more than another messenger raven. He wanted to reach through the bars that pressed tight to her body and pull her free, but she snapped in anger at anything that got close to her - including him. There was some pride in her resilience, but more fear than he was comfortable with. Ada screeched in outrage as her cage was lifted away from him and she fought with beak and talon even in her distress. Fahleon wouldn't let her see him just stand around. He reached for his bow and stopped only when a knife point pricked at his back. Varric was at his side and Fahleon shrugged off both the weapon pointed at him and the hand at his elbow. 

"You left him unbound?" a man shouted, like Fahleon was the true animal that should have been caged. He was robed in a white dress edged in yellow and stained red at the hems in some uniformity of the Chantry's sunburst insignia. It burned Fahleon's eyes to look at it, and he lifted his narrowed eyes up to meet the man's face. The man's pointed finger trembled. "He should be caged! He should be beheaded! As Grand Chancellor, I hear by order you to take this criminal to Val Royeaux to face execution!"

He expected another knife in the back. Or, knowing the way things had been going, knives. Plural. Instead, Cassandra argued with him with a voice sharper than any blade, and the one at his spine lifted.

"Order me? You are a glorified clerk," she said, first, and some other insult, second. The attention was off of him and even Varric had taken his hands off him to watch the spectacle. Fahleon slipped a foot forward, and then another, and dared to slip past them all with every eye on the two bickering. 

He should have expected to be stopped, again, and of course from Leliana. She stepped on his toes and hushed his hiss with a hand against his chest. He couldn't shove her away unless he wanted a swollen foot, and the smile that made her eyes cold said she knew it, too. With her in the way, he'd lost sight of Ada, and he half a mind to try anyway.

"Remember that we serve the most Holy, Chancellor Rodrick-"

"Who is dead - need I remind you?" He drew in a sharp breath and Fahleon wondered if it was to steady whatever remorse he might - or might not - have felt, or to wrap tight the lie along his tongue. "We must elect a replacement for her and follower her wishes on the matter. But first we need to take care of her murderer-"

"I'll need to kill someone first," Fahleon snapped. He was lucky and frustrated when Leliana spoke over him to mask his anger. Fahleon felt her nails dig into his chest as a warning and he slapped her hand away. She didn't respond to it, and that made it all the worse. The most he could do was send a glare at the chancellor. The outrage on the man's face eased Fahleon's ire. A little.

"We must first get to the temple and stop the rifts before we do anything else." There was a map spread out on a table crafted out of several crates shoved together to separate the raven cages from the supplies. Leliana smoothed the edges of the map out and Fahleon finally shoved past her as she moved around the table. Still, she blocked him from Ada. "I say we send my spies as a distraction while you climb the mountain path. It's the quickest route."

"But not the safest," Cassandra argued. "We've already lost a dozen lives to the mountains. It's too risky to make another attempt." Fahleon felt another pair of eyes hot on him and he turned his attention away from stretching past Leliana to narrow his eyes at Cassandra's red face. "Do you have any opinions on the matter?"

Fahleon glanced behind him and found only space. "You're asking me?" 

"You have the mark," Solas said, as if that cleared anything up. Fahleon waited a beat before snorting. Solas shook his head. "It is up to you to decide how to use it."

That wasn't how Fahleon saw it.

"I don't want to use it. I want it gone." Had everyone but him forgotten that he wanted no part of this? That he'd followed along just to get his bird back - and that he hadn't yet. Perhaps that was their game. The longer the chancellor held on to his bird, the longer Fahleon had to play along. 

It wasn't a game he enjoyed playing, and he knew Ada was never one for spectating. He whistled a sharp sound and Ada knocked at the cage until it tumbled over. She snapped at Leliana's fingers as the woman tried to right it, and the kite swooped from the bars when the small door swung open. Ada took off, uncaring of the ravens she angered in her haste, and circled high above him. Another shrill call brought her close to him, and Fahleon was unsure if she'd come down at all after her ordeal.

"Whatever's fastest," he finally said, and ignored Cassandra's wry look. She sighed and staightened from her lean over the map.

"The mountain path, then."

"You really won't make this easy for us, will you?" Varric said, surprising him by being the one to complain. He expected more input from Solas for being to rash as the only one to save them all. "I might have to come up with a new name for you, Smiles. Like Crazy or Dumbass, or, Don't Do That You'll Get Us All Killed." 

He muttered something else under his breath as he lumbered away and off to follow Cassandra up a latter set into the rock of the cliff at the end of the bridge. Beyond that was even more snow. Fahleon slapped at his sides to fight off against the cold. With the crowd behind them as he worked their way up the mountain, Ada calmed enough to perch on his shoulder and lend her own heat.

The snow turned black the further up the mountain they walked until it was raining gray. Fahleon frowned as he passed blackened trees and signs of fire. He didn't remember a fire. He remembered a mockery of reality, where the sky was green and the ground was wet and it rained liquid fire instead of snow. He remembered the temple as it first broke apart and the screams of those within it. He could see them now, charred black from the blast that had incinerated them completely to mark them forever in the throes of agony. He could see the temple now, nothing more than a hole in the dirt for miles. Fahleon's brow furrowed. If this was how he was found, alive in the middle of this destruction, he almost felt guilty for spitting at Cassandra. 

Almost.

He looked to her and her face had softened, somewhat, from stern disapproval to something more resembling apologetic. 

Maybe a little more guilty that just almost.

"This is lyrium, Seeker. _Red_ lyrium," Varric hissed as they ducked under what remained of the grand entrance. Large, ornate doors had been blasted to pieces and pillars of something red and glowing and crystalline stood in their place. "Do you know what this means?"

"I do."

Fahleon didn't, but he knew enough that he didn't want to be near it. He gave it as wide a berth as he could between the wall and Cassandra, and felt his skin crawl when he couldn't. It grew more difficult to avoid it as they entered the temple proper. Or, what was left of even that. The rift filled up the main hall from the cracked floor to its broken ceiling to press against the confines of the walls. It made the air thick with ozone and heavy with magic. The rift snapped and the mark crackled back, softer, in a way, but no less powerful. Fahleon shook the static away with a jerk of his hand.

_"Bring me the sacrifice."_

__

__

_"What's going on here? Release me!"_

He came to a sudden halt and eyed the Breach. He remembered that - the voices, if not who spoke them. Cassandra gave him some hints from her gasp and the curse she muttered her breath. The Divine, probably, and the one who had really started all of this.

"It's a memory from the Breach," Solas explained, unwarranted and unnecessary. "It has have been closed improperly from the initial blast. It will have to be opened again before it can be finally closed."

Fahleon grit his teeth against the way the Breach sucked at the mark, how it dragged his hand away from him. He fought against it and raised it with his own power, on his own time. 

"There will be demons. Get ready," Cassandra called.

The magic came pouring from the wound in his hand before he knew what he was doing, and Fahleon cried out as his arm lit ablaze with pain.


	5. Chapter 5

The demons did come, faster and harder than Fahleon was prepared for. They tore their way through the men battling them to claw at his head and slash at his mind. They mocked his weaknesses and prided themselves on his useless powers while whispering of the kind he'd need to defeat them. They promised he could attain it. They described the true horror he had yet to face and leaked hints to just how he could protect himself. He only needed to give up, to give in, they encouraged. Fahleon turned out their sharp-toothed likes and looked past their spittle slick lips. He could do no more, not when the mark in his hand took every part of his attention just to push away the Fade and stop the Breach. He'd bear their laughter and their taunts but he wouldn't move from his spot unless it killed him.

From the way the air burned and popped and hissed with every pulse, he thought it very well may have.

" _Run_ ," the Divine yelled, from somewhere, muted by time and space. Fahleon felt the memory as a quiver in his calves and squashed down on the impulse to flee. If sealing the Breach could kill him, turning back now absolutely would. The Veil twisted and turned in violent attempts to wrench itself free from its grasp and would snap back at him given the chance. He tightened his told on the magic coursing through him even as it slipped between his fingers. The effort of it made him dizzy and nauseous and he grit his teeth against the overwhelming tide.

At the rate he was going, the demons would force their way through the elgar'vian, and Fahleon wasn't sure he could fight off both the Fade and the demons that lived within in.

" _Kill him _," a rough voice roared above the cacophony of whispers, crackling of the Fade, and the battle cries of those around him, and Fahelon found himself waking with a snarl ripped from this throat.__

__The crash of steel against scales and snap of heated air was replaced by his raspy cry. Fahleon clutched at his throat and swallowed to ease the roughness if it. He could feel his pulse jump like a frightened rabbit beneath his fingers, and he drew in a handful of slow breaths until he felt it calm. There was no foe to fight here, no enemy to stare down or push back against - wherever he was._ _

__A cabin. A small one and much more intact than the temple of Sacred Ashes. Yet, just as unused._ _

__Dust turned the pelts that adorned the walls gray and insects had eaten at the woven tapestries that hung above the doors and stretched along the windows like curtains until their patterns were one, dull, color. A thick rug coated the floor and collected rat pellets. Unsteady light streamed through the branches of a tree outside to cast shifting shadows from a golden afternoon sun without any trace of a greenish glow. Charming was the least of the place's qualities, but Fahleon cared only for its quiet and distance from demons._ _

__Fahleon let out a breath and the panic leeched out of his limbs until he was tired and empty. He should have learned more about his surroundings or his whereabouts at the least, but it meant rising from the bed he laid on in search of answers. He'd have to ask someone, and it was the knowledge that it would be Cassandra he'd have to ask that kept him all the more firmly planted against the pillows._ _

__They were damp with his sweat and he wrinkled his nose. There was less of an issue if it came to finding someone to change the sheets. Fahleon threw them off and gave the bandages wrapped tight around his middle a brief look until the sharp sound of a plate shattering to the floor drew his attention. Dread wolf take him for letting his guard down. He curled his lip at the girl who stood, hunched and curled in on herself as if her arms and elbows could protect her from the shards. They wouldn't protect her from him if she tried to move any closer than the low table she pressed against. He should have known the shems would try something the moment his usefulness outlived himself. It was a wonder his hands were free even now, and not clapped in irons again - once more the guilty party he'd first been. More surprising, still, was that they hadn't simply skip over the show of slowly dragging him across town, belting out his crimes, and kill him on the spot. Yet, that was. Worse, still, was that he was still alive for another purpose. To be leashed and trained like a docile servant for the humans that ruled above. There was still time to fit in another disappointment._ _

__He bared his teeth and hoped he looked as intimidating as he hoped despite injured, confused, and without any weapons. Even Ada was gone._ _

__The girl flinched nonetheless and the pitcher she held in her other hand joined the plate on the floor. She yelped and jumped away as water splashed up her legs._ _

__"I'm sorry, I didn't know when you'd wake up. I'll go - I have to, I have to tell the Seeker -"_ _

__"Wait," Fahleon snarled. He'd tear himself in half if he had to see that woman again. She halted so abruptly that only her hands shook as the rest of her stilled mid-step, one leg still bent and ready to take her back to the door. "Tell me where I am."_ _

__She wobbled on her one leg and her throat bobbed as she swallowed. "I-I'm supposed to tell the Seeker-"_ _

__He glared at her. He'd tear her in half first, and then himself, if it meant he wouldn't have to see Cassandra. He would not cowed like an animal for the slaughter. "You won't tell her anything. Answer me," he continued and there was a sudden and heady rush of power at the vigorous nod she gave him. It knocked the white braids wrapped around her head to show the slight point to her ears, and he blew out a breath. He pitched his voice lower. "What happened. After the..." What had they called it? Fahleon turned his eyes up towards the window to look for the elgar'vian again._ _

__"The Breach, messer?" She finally returned her foot to the ground and straightened the apron hung loose over dress before folding her empty hands in front of her. Her eyes slowly moved from the broken silverware to stop and stare at his hand, and Fahleon felt his fingers twitch under her wide-eyed look. "You closed it. The demon came pouring through the tear until you showed up. They've been calling you the Herald."_ _

__He curled his fingers over the wound that still stretched across his palm to hide it from her sight. He felt his skin buzz with the power still leaking from it, but it was a faint tingle compared to the burn it had been before he'd shoved it at the Breach like he had any thought as to what was supposed to happen. He'd only wished to end it all, the climb to the mountains, the judging eyes always weighted heavy on his back, the overwhelming threat of demons, and then that burn had been directed at the rift itself._ _

__He had the power to control the Fade and fight the demons that pushed against it. He had the power to inspire a misplaced hope in some hearts, and fear in others. Himself as well, and Fahleon didn't know if which one of those he was. He wasn't a mage with the knowledge to understand the magics he held and fought against. He wasn't a warrior to stand strong and resolute against the tides of war. He was a hunter, a drawn out but one time chase that ended in bloodshed. He was an elf, and one that liked only his own company. His concerns stretched as far as the boundaries set by his forests, his battles fought only against the hunger of his clan. Fahleon was no hero, no savior, no Herald._ _

__He looked up to demand of her again and caught the girl sneaking towards the still open door. She squeaked when she was spotted and she stuttered on a hasty apology. "I have to tell the Seeker."_ _

__Fahleon cursed under his breath and swung his legs over the side of the bed, bandaged wounds or not. She worried his lip, bitting down harder with every second it took for him to find his footing, and he ignored her offer to help as he crossed the room. He refused her offered arm, too, and she hesitated to go for the items she'd dropped as he stood over them._ _

__"What were you doing?" Was she sent to spy on him after all? Or was this all a clever ruse, meant to get him to talk while played as a simple interaction. He couldn't trust any of them as far as he could throw them._ _

__"I...I was bringing it. I was tasked with taking the food and drink to you. And to go to the Chantry the moment you awoke to tell the Seeker.”_ _

__Fahleon's brow twitched as he stood over the spilled meal. The ground rolled up to meet him when he bent to pick up the cracked plate and he once again smacked her outstretched arm away with a growl. He snatched up one of the rolls that had oncebeen piled on it, brushing off an insect with a sweep of his thumb. The bread was hard and dry and difficult to eat, but his empty stomach welcomed it. "I'll find the Seeker. Not you."_ _

__“Y-yes, ser. My name is Raya, if it pleases," she said. He hadn't asked and he wasn't pleased._ _

__"Disgusting,” he told her, even as he bit into it again._ _

__She blinked, a frown forming on her face as she held the platter out to accept it. Fahleon turned away from it and watched a pair of guardsman pass by. Several more were hidden around the perimeter of the house, identified by the sharp glares of sunlight on armor. When he passed by them to find Cassandra, they hesitated for only a moment of shock before slapping a fist against their breastplate. A man across the path dropped the box of supplies in his haste to copy them. His ears twitched at the hush that settled around him. It followed him up the hill to the Chantry, a silent ghost on his back._ _

__Dread wolf take him, indeed. If Cassandra didn't kill him before someone else did._ _

__Like Chancellor Roderick - or whoever the weasel employed to do it for him. What strength his convictions held was found only in his voice and nowhere near his arms. At least, not enough to do the beheading himself. If he even needed to. Fahleon would cut his own head off if it relieved the headache pounding behind his eyes just from the sound of it as it echoed through the Chantry's interior. One more demand to ship him away to another cell in another city had him turning from the elaborate door it came from to find an axe behind a smaller and much less detailed one. He half-heartedly hoped he'd find something sharp within._ _

__Sharp eyes and sharp tongues made him groan._ _

__The squeak of hold hinges and his muttered curse interrupted a heated argument discussing a topic he hated even more than the ones about himself - politics. Fancy names and all the times their owners thought it earned them._ _

__"You cannot prove the Inquisition was founded on Justinia's orders," a man snapped. Fahleon mistook him for a woman for all the whining he did. A real mustached twitched under a fake one when he frowned with what part of his dry lips showed under the mask. Fahleon curled his lip when the man spat at him._ _

__"More of the faithful flock to Haven every day, Marquis," a real woman soothed from the shadowed corner of the room. A candle lit atop some sort of tablet illuminated her face and put a spark in her eye that unnerved him more than the eerie mask. He growled and the woman waved off his anger like the smoke from her flame. The power of her dissimial was its own sort of magic that the Fade wound couldn't feel. "Let me introduce you to the brave soul that allowed this happen by risking his life to slow the magic of the Breach. Ser Lavellan," she said, with another and entirely different gesture of her hand. Fahleon flinched but only a brush of air hit his cheeks. "May I present the Marquis DuRebllion - one of Divine Justinia's greatest supporters."_ _

__"And rightful owner of Haven," he added, too quick for Fahleon to even draw in a breath to deny his pleasure. "House DuRellion lent Justinia these lands for pilgrimage, not as a beneficiary to this 'Inquisition'." Fahleon's fingers twitched at his sides and it was the only the thought that Cassandra would, somehow, find out that kept them from reaching out to strangle the man just to make his voice stop. "I will not stand by and let some upstart order remain on her holy grounds," he added, with much less resolution, and Fahleon crossed his arms with a raise of his brows._ _

__"So sit," he growled._ _

__The woman let out a choked noise and she covered it up with a polite cough. "You will have to do neither. If you do not take Seeker Pentaghast at her word, she may challenge you to a duel." The Marquis's strangled noise was the first one he bothered to listen to out of his mouth. "It is a matter of honor among Nevarra. Shall I arrange it for tonight?"_ _

__"No, no," he said with a wave of his arms. "That won't be necessary. I...admit I may have been hasty with my reaction to the Inquisiton's presence."_ _

__"That would have been the best part of my wook," Fahleon said as he watched the door swing shut behind the noble. Or not noble. Did he have to claim land to keep his title? He rubbed at his temples and wondered why he cared._ _

__"The DuRellions are Orlesian," she explained, though he hadn't asked and certainly wouldn't for any clarification. "Any claim they held to Fereldan would have to first go through Celene to negotiate with Anora on the matter. But these are trying times, Herald. Her current concerns are a bit larger than land disputes; he is not in so strong a position as he believes. Unfortunately, he is not the only disgruntled...dignitary we will have to contend with."_ _

__The Chancellor's voice resounded louder as he made another claim on his head, and Fahleon let out a sigh. Any other distraction that took him from the Chantry would only make his sentence worse for him. He might as well head in while the fight was still good._ _

__"If anyone calls you," she started, and Fahleon gave her what very little patience he had left for her to voice her thought. She tapped the feathered end of her quill against her lips and cleared her throat. "If anyone would dare you call you something you dislike, bring it to me. I will have it dealt with at once."_ _

__The...warning still stung whether he expected it or not. He thanked her for her...courtesy with as little of a scowl as he could manage with anger and shame tugging hard at the corners of his mouth. He hoped, for everyone's sake, that the Chancellor stood out of the way of the door._ _

__Whether it was Fahleon's luck or Roderick's, he was on the opposite side of the room when Fahleon slammed it open._ _

__"I will not stand-" Roderick had started, and Fahleon's hand dragged down the grain of the door, nails scratching deep into the wood. It was a constant loop with these shems and time magic was not another sort he needed on top of whatever leaked from his hand._ _

__Cassandra's eyes slid from the door back to the Chancellor's. Her voice was tight and rough between clenched teeth. "The Breach is stable, but it still a threat."_ _

__"You want me help with that," he said - not asked. Fahleon entered the room proper and gripped the table with both hands to lean his weight against it. He hoped it cracked. Papers were rough under his palms. Maps, they looked like, with all their twisted lines and filled circles. Some had more scribbles on them than just the names of rivers and towns, perhaps soldier movements or rifts but neither held his attention much. It was the feeling of eyes on him that kept his thoughts in place. The Breach wouldn't kill him, not anymore. Demons wouldn't fall from the sky in the rate they had been. Something had caused this other than just a not so happy coincidence and Cassandra was more than happy to cow him into a servant to find out._ _

__Help indeed._ _

__"I want you in chains!" Roderick, again. Fahleon rose to his full height - still two heads shorter than the man - but he didn't need to be taller than the chantry brother. He needed to have stronger convictions, and Fahleon was convinced the man needed to be silenced, forever, more than the Chancellor thought he needed to be imprisoned._ _

__He felt someone at his back and snarled when Leliana placed a hand on his shoulder._ _

__"Someone was behind the explosion at the Conclave," she said. "They could have died with the others. Or have allies that yet still live." Fahleon hadn't looked at her, but he watched Roderick's eyes widen and wondered what she was doing. With the han still on his shoulder, it wasn't much of a mystery._ _

__"Are you suggesting me?" The surprise in Roderick's voice sounded better than any crush of bones under his fist. "I'm a suspect but not the prisoner?'_ _

__"Among others," she agreed._ _

__"The Divine did call out to him for help," Cassandra added, quickly, and with an enthusiasm Fahleon didn't think she had anywhere in her frozen, solid core. "We heard her voice in the temple. The Maker...he must have sent you to use in our darkest hour."_ _

__Fahleon reeled. Not even Cassandra's physical punches had knocked him off center as hard as that had. "You just wanted me dead. Now I'm your divine savior?"_ _

__"Perhaps I was wrong. About many things." Cassandra's nose wrinkled and Fahleon hoped the apology tasted bad on her tongue. "I still could be. But I will not pretend that you were exactly what we needed exactly when we needed it."_ _

__"I was dragged from the mountain in chains, not wrapped up like some gift."_ _

__"Yet the mark on your hand is the only hope we have to seal the Breach."_ _

__"You don't get to decide that!" Roderick demand ended on a high note as Cassandra tossed a thick book on the table in front of him. It scattered the parchment near it and he jumped from the fluttering pages. He glared at the book like it held worse news than that he was already privy too._ _

__"The Divine does - with this writ. As of this moment, I declare the Inquisition reborn," she announced, with more conviction than Fahleon and much more than Roderick. "We will close the Breach, we will find those who are responsible, and we will restore order. With or without _your_ approval."_ _

__Maybe Roderick was right, as much as it pained Fahleon to admit, and from the ringing in his ears it was very painful. This was much worse news. "If I refuse?"_ _

__"You are free to go," Leliana answered as she moved out from behind him and left the door great. "We cannot hold you here, but let it be known that all of Thedas may collapse without you."_ _

__"Fantastic."_ _


	6. Chapter 6

Fahleon walked out the door. He walked past the Spymaster and the Seeker, away from the war room and the Chantry. Away from Chancellor Roderick's ungodly screeching and the Inquisition. Whatever that was. Nothing he wanted to be a part of, but something that wanted him to be anyway. He hurried down the steps, half expecting someone to stop him but no words followed him. No hands were laid in his path. A surprise after all he'd been through in the past several days but he wouldn't question it. Sooner or later someone would realize just what they had done. 

Later was preferred. The further he got away from Haven, the better. 

Quick strides took him to the cabin to collect his things - whatever those were, now. The bow, for one, and whatever arrows were left to it. He caught a glimpse of feathers in his rush and whirled at the sight of Ada, again, in a cage. 

Maybe there was some time to spare. Just enough to kick the damned thing to pieces, at least, and he made good on his promise after he coaxed the bird out with a whistle. The sound of metal crashing into the wall wasn't enough to appease him, but Ada shrieked her victory and Fahleon wouldn't waste time with a second round. He spat at the door step and swore to never see the place again. He wouldn't play puppet for Cassandra. There was no Maker pushing him through hoops or clouds of magic - just a woman with too much belief in songs. Her Inquisition could find it's own leader, it's own support, without one more elf behind the scenes running beneath them. Magic might have caused the problem but it wouldn't solve it - especially the uncontrollable thing burned into his hand. Cassandra had been better off keeping him in his cell. 

Fahleon slung the bow across his back and tied the quiver to his belt. It couldn't be that difficult to find his way back to the Free Marches from Haven. He'd gone on less before. Never quite so far but there were towns in the miles and miles between here and the sea to ask for directions. Maybe the Wardens, too, if they bothered to make true on their quest for his head. The Wardens almost made sense, and that was agreeing to be killed for his desertion. Maybe the murder of an Archdemon to end the Blight was no different than a murder of the Divine and a breach of the Veil, but when did that end? There weren't only two more Divines. Was he supposed to solve all of their deaths?

He swore again when Ada dug her talons deep into his shoulder before taking off. If only the Creators had given him wings, too; he could have been outside of the walls within in minutes. They'd seen him fit with only legs, and Fahleon worked them hard in the direction of the kitchen tents.

Servants scrambled out of his way down the smoke-filled lines. If he stayed longer Fahleon could enjoy the feeling of such fear on their face, but it annoyed him. Too many eyes to watch his path, too many mouths to speak his direction... He felt eyes on him and Fahleon ducked around a curtain to swipe a sack from atop of stack of barrels and dumped it over to empty it of the fruits it held. No feet kicked them where they dropped and he eased out of hiding long enough to stuff a loaf of bread from one tent and a stack of dried meats from another into the sack. 

A hand slapped down on his own when he reached for a skin of water to spill it across his shirt when he jumped. 

"What are you doing? You can't just steal those." The half-elf. She met his glare with a matching furrow between her brows and pressed down harder on his hand when he tried to snatch it back to himself. She'd been following him - for how long? Since he'd left for the Chantry? Since he'd come back out again? If this was just another way of keeping him chained, tethered to the Inquisition through the soft eyes of a flat ear... Cassandra had chosen the wrong pawn. If anything, it made him want to leave even faster.

"You won't miss them," Fahleon growled as he tore himself away. He tied the sack to his belt next to the quiver and it slapped against his leg as he wove back through the kitchen area. It knocked hard into his knee and she grabbed a hold of his wrist and yanked him around. Fahleon snarled and chased after her flinch with eyes bright with fury. "You don't touch me, shem. Ever."

"It's Raya," she said, and her voice quavered even as she straightened. "And...I want to know where you're taking those!"

Maybe Cassandra had chosen the right pawn. Stubborn, difficult to get rid of, and thinking themselves more important than their actual use. 

"With me." He made another move to escape and muttered a word under his breath when she kept him in place with another tug on his sleeve.

"You mean you're leaving? After everything you've seen? You're not going to stop the Breach?" He pursed his lips. She pressed forward and Fahleon felt her heat through the thick furs of his jacket. He pushed her back down with a snort and moved around her.

"I don't care."

"Then what about the Dalish?" Fahleon felt his feet plant themselves in the dirt at the word and he breathed heavy through his nose. She'd put the table between them when he turned to face her and she flinched at the twitch of his eye. Unsurprising, she kept talking. "You haven't heard about all the rifts appearing everywhere, have you? They're all over Fereldan and Orlais, these little breaches that can't be closed."

A lie, if he'd heard any before, but spoken with just enough confidence to leave him questioning. Creators she was good - if messy about it. There was a desperation in the lean of her body and Fahleon wondered if Cassandra had put her up to keeping him here. Just what had that woman done to make Raya so afraid? Unless it wasn't her. The Spymaster played just as major of a role in his capture as Cassanra did, and Fahleon hadn't felt a lenient finger on his shoulder. 

"I'll close the ones around my clan." He didn't bother to move. There was going to be another argument against him, and he ticked off the seconds it took for her to think of one by the swing of the bag against his hip. 

"And the other clans?" Two swings and she was leaning forward far over the table. "You're going to help them, too, right? And close any of the rifts you find along the way because they're there? That sounds like what you'd do, here, anyway. Might as well stay."

"Okay."

She blinked. "Okay? You'll do it? You'll stay?"

"I didn't say that." Confusion clouded her face and it made the anger and frustration well up in his gut to leave a bad taste in his mouth even as it burned the cold of the afternoon away. She didn't stop him the third time he moved to leave but it was little relief. There was still the soldiers training by the gates to pass and the medics treating the wounded just outside the tents by the stables. The feeling of eyes on his back never left but he refused to turn to find Leliana or whoever thought they were too important to do anything else but watch him from a tower no higher than their self-perceived worth. It could have been Solas from the way it made his shoulders itch.

_The Inquisition could protect you._ Cassandra's words followed him under the outer gates of Haven and into the snowy hills, spoken like she was doing him a favor. As if she hadn't been the one ready to the kill him in the first place. She still was, somewhere, in her plans. He knew the process, the tactics, the look of a hunt and she was showing all the signs of a long run. 

_We could help you,_ Leliana added, with all the honey of a poisoned bee's nest. Just because she kept Ada safe didn't mean he trusted her any more than the others looking to use him. Help was just another word for cowed, collared, and controlled and he had had enough of it just from his race. The taint of magic on his hands would not add to it. Not if he had anything to say about it - and he had a lot to say. Most of it being in the form of a no. His Keeper would know what to do better than any shem. He'd help the clan through whatever the Breach had caused and life would go back to as it was. Whatever threat the Inquisition fought against could find someone else to chase.

There couldn't truly be rifts in the Free Marches, could there? She'd said Fereldan and Orlais. The Free Marchers were outside of both those regions, and, if she was right, it only made him all the more insistent to get back to his clan sooner if they were in trouble. The fool - her job had been to keep him in place and here he was, pushing through the snow as fast as his legs could take him away from it all. Blast the Wardens, too, again, for sending him away. If they'd never bothered he'd never end up in this mess in the first place. Could it have been the Breach would never have opened, either? The sky would stay whole and the rifts never tear through the air?

Fahleon snarled and shoved his fingers into his mouth to whistle above the winds. Above, Ada circled in a tight loop to swoop back towards him to stay in sight. He didn't need her disappearing on him now, too, especially as it grew dark. He could track in the light of the stars better than any man, but the hills of the Frostbacks were unfamiliar and the snow deeper than he was used to. He'd only waste time by walking in circles and the rook of a cabin that peeked out between the trees was better than waiting for the last of the light to fade and sleeping underneath them.

Or maybe it was better to just stay close in case something happened. A bear attack. A sudden rift. A stalker. 

Fahleon waded through the knee deep snow and crossed the easier path across the lake to the cabin's front door. The water was frozen twice over and he circled the outside for any sign of life inside, but the windows were dark and frosted over from the cold and when he entered the door creaked worse than the rotten steps leading up to it. The fire pit was nothing but dust, but another quick walk around the cabin left his arms full of branches. A strike of two arrows together sparked them into flame and the the shadows shaped into two beds, a desk, and a chest with no lid. The desk was covered in more paper than the war table in the chantry, but these ones were easier to discern. Fahleon laid his hand flat against the lines drawn across the pages and spread his fingers to fit within the drawing. Someone had tried to draw the mark on his hand. 

He tossed the page into the fire and turned for the bed. It was dusty and moldy and the sheets smelled sour. Fahleon threw them off and flattened his cape atop the mattress and curled on top of it. 

What if he didn't go back to Haven, Fahleon thought, as he watched the fire cast unsteady light across the walls. Would the Inquisition come after him? Would the killer behind the Conclave's explosion follow him? Or would he have the time to save his clan from the rifts? Or, if he returned, would Cassandra keep her word and ensure his safety as he hunted down the rifts under her? 

Mythal protect him in the coming dawn, from prying eyes and sharp tongues, then. Let night linger and shade his return from whispers and onlookers, least Falon'din take him before shame did. He wouldn't sleep, not with this plan. Fahleon spent the night cleaning the bow and wrapping a proper handle around it. An unlucky rabbit tested the strength of it and a very lucky Ada tested its taste. The sack he'd stolen was tucked into the chest. Creators knew he'd be back to get away soon, and he wouldn't return it to the half-elf. He'd feed it all to the bird and let her grow fat before he did that. 

He'd admit he was wrong to the Seeker, too, before he apologized to a rat like Raya. Face already set in a scowl, Fahleon shouldered his way out of cabin just before dawn. His footsteps were quiet, his shadow was muted, and he cursed to the stars still visible when Ada shrieked their approach. 

"Back so soon, Smiles?" Fahleon ducked his head and sighed at the snow when Varric rose from a fire to lean against the wall. He crossed his arms with a grin that Fahleon dared to grow wider. "I won't tell anyone. So long as you don't tell anyone that I was out here freezing my chest hairs off worried about you. I've lost enough friends already, you know." 

Fahleon's brow arched and his eyes drew up along with it to glance at the dwarf warming his hands over the open flame. He frowned. "We're not friends."

Varric chuckled. "Of course we're not. You just so happen to be the only person in this shitty world with the ability to save it, and I just so happen to be the only dwarf with a good enough attitude to think you might be able to. Plus, I'm the only one you haven't pointed a weapon at yet and I think that makes us friends." He held up one of his hands and in the shadows and Fahleon couldn't tell if he was checking the color that returned to his skin or was already putting a halt to any argument he held for the dwarf. He snorted, instead, and moved on. "Goodnight, Smiles."


	7. Chapter 7

"We need help from the rebel mages in Recliffe," Cassandra said, without preamble and without a second look after finding Fahleon wandering into the Chantry with the morning's light. Sleep hadn't come, not when he had one eye open for anyone ready with a mocking word for his escape and the other open for anyone ready with a knife to his back. The tree he'd climbed into hadn't helped either. It was a far cry from comfort, but he didn't trust Haven enough to sleep in the same bed twice. At least someone would have to make a racket in order to reach him if they wanted to kill him. 

Then, the purple-bruised sky had turned bloody, then piss colored, and Fahleon could have scowled at someone worth his ire rather than the clouds. He'd headed to the Chantry, a curse already prepared on his lips for when Cassandra mentioned the previous night. It slipped out when she brought up the mages. 

Magic had gotten them all into this mess. Magic had torn open the sky and ripped the ceiling from the temple. Magic leaked from his hands and twisted his world into the chaos it was now - and she wanted to throw more into the mix? He shoved open the door to the war room with a scoff and let it close on her and her silly ideas. 

"We need the templars." Cullen stood over the table and he looked up when the door swung open again to meet his eyes. Fahleon felt the space between his shoulders itch where his bow should have rested. His fingers curled around empty air instead of a quiver of arrows, and he supposed Leliana was right to encourage the elven savage to be seen without a weapon or an animal on his shoulder. He only agreed with leaving Ada to her own business. She disliked the change in scenery even worse than he did, and only have the control on her than his bow. Her talons were quicker and her beak fiercer than any arrow point - and more likely to hit anything that movies. He had some control, at least.

Except when it came to stupid ideas.

A soldier marching towards him in full armor with a determination in his step and a fire in his eyes, words of templars and reinforcements and due cause was a very stupid idea on the man's part. Fahleon growled low in his throat even as he felt himself move between him and the other side of the table. The mark on his hand crackled and Fahleon gripped the edge, nails digging in deep into the grain.

"Commander Cullen," Cassandra said, and Cullen was only so lucky she was watching. He wasn't so sure what the magic in his hand could do, but he wouldn't feel guilty trying it out on a templar. Former templar. Once a templar always a murdering Chantry dog.

"Such as they are," the man said, after a moment, and he cleared his throat. Fahleon's lip curled. "We lost many in the valley, and I fear we'll lose more before this is through. Which is why I say we gain the Order's influence to help us."

"The mages are just as useful," a woman said, and Fahleon twitched at the familiar pitch. He glanced over his shoulder and the woman who'd argued the noble out of Haven curtsied with a deep bend at the waist. "I am Josephin Montilyet - ambassador, chief diplomat, and very pleased to officially introduce myself. Andaran atish'an."

Fahleon's hand slipped from the table in his haste to eye her. His thumb caught a sliver and blood welled from the cut. "You speak elven?" 

He frowned and her eyes strayed to the board again in hands. "I'm afraid you've heard the entirety of it, but I would be pleased to learn more." She did her curtsy a second time. Just where had Cassandra found all these people?

"You know Sister Nightingale as our spymaster," she said, whether she knew she was interrupting his thoughts or not. The hardness of her eyes and the tightness of her jaw spoke her uncaring of either. Fahleon crossed his arms and sucked on his thumb until his mouth tasted less like metal - which took less time than it did for Cassandra to explain herself. Not that he'd ask out of his own curiosity. More time spent in the Chantry was less time spent ogled and pointed towards and whispered at. It was warmer within the stone walls, too. Though, surely there was a better reason for holding him here than his own comfort. "You recall that I mentioned your mark needs more power than it has to close the Breach for good. Solas believes that we need is a power on the same as what was used to open it in the first place - but that will not be easy to come by."

"But there is a rebel mage group amassing on the outskirts of Redcliffe," Leliana explained. Cullen inhaled and Leliana pulled a map out from beneath several others to hold up in front of his face. He closed his mouth with a glower and rested his hand on the pommel of his sword. Fahleon caught the glint of steel and checked a flinch that sent goosebumps up his arms before it was caught. He didn't dare look away so long as the templar's fingers were moments away from bearing naked steel.

"As I said, we need power," Cassandra agreed, and Fahleon didn't like the way Cullen's expression darkened. "Pouring that much magic into the Breach-"

"Could kill us all," Cullen finished. He swiped the parchment out of Leliana's hand and slammed it back on the table, out of view. "Whereas the templars could suppress the Breach and weaken it until the mark is as powerful as we need it. On it's own."

"That is pure speculation, Commander."

"Is this because the elven apostate didn't come up with the idea?" he snorted with a wave of his hand, and Fahleon's ears twitched at the stress he put on the words elven and apostate. His lip curled. "I was a templar. I know what they're capable of."

"Unfortunately," Josephine interjected as a fact and most certainly not a denial. Or a sigh. Or a reprimand. Tension faded as she stepped up to the table and tapped her tablet against the top to dispel their argument and draw their eyes to her. "Neither group will speak to us. The Chantry, as we all know, has denounced the Inquisition - and you must specifically." Fahleon rolled his shoulders under her gaze. "Some of them are calling you - a Dalish elf - the Herldan of Andraste and it frightens the Chantry. Everyone else has declared it blasphemy, and us heretics for supporting you."

"Tell them to stop."

Her mouth quirked and Josephine wiped it away with a pass of her quill over her lips. "A simple but unattainable solution, I'm afraid. Not with the Chantry's voice so loud in this turbulent time. Thus, it limits our options. Both of which do not include approaching the mages or the templars," she finished, and gave a pointed look to both Leliana and Cullen in turn.

"What you're saying is if I wasn't with the Inquisition..." The harder Cassandra looked at him the wider Fahleon felt his grin spread.

"You not being here is not an option," she growled, and he coughed a chuckled into a fist.

"But there is something you could do," Leliana said, lifting her head up from the papers she'd been looking over as they spoke. The brightness in her eyes and the eagerness in her steps as he rounded the table sent fear curling slow and cold somewhere low in his gut. She unrolled the paper she held in her hand out for them and moved her thumb down a large and woody part of the map. "There is a Chantry cleric by the name of Mother Giselle that has expressed some wish to speak with you. Her position is not far - she has been helping the refugess caught in the mage-tempar conflict within the hinterlands just outside Redcliffe. Her title is impressive enough that she knows more about those involved with the Chantry than I ever could. It could make her useful in gaining influence with either side - whichever you might choose."

"It would be a good chance to expand the Inquisition's influence as you go," Josephine said, slowly, with a nod as she dragged out each word as she thought. "The more they see you out sealing the rifts and helping the refugees the less they'll lean on the word of the Chantry." Fahleon scoffed. 

"It's true," Cullen said, and he lifted a finger as an idea came to him. Fahleon snarled and grit his teeth. If he pointed any closer, he'd lose that finger. "There's a horse master by the name of Dennet that lives near the farms who could be of use for us. Speak with him you're there." He finally dropped his hand to push a small clay piece in the shape of a sword across the table to a point marked in heavy ink. Redcliffe, Fahleon assumed. He picked up the clay piece, ignoring Cullen's patient if accusing sigh. Fahleon let it drop to the floor and let them clean up the shards while he left to fetch his bow. 

Unnecessary work in return for their unnecessary talk. It was fair.

Varric was outside leaning against one of the two tall flaming pillars guarding the Chantry's entrance picking at the underside of his nails with a thin knife. He waved the blade in a lazy roll of his wrist when Fahleon passed. He rolled his eyes and the grin the dwarf gave him made his hope for what little peace he'd find in the short walk to the cabin curdle. Fahleon's ears twitched with every step, trying to catch any hint of mockery about to tumble from Varric's mouth beneath the sound of snow crunching underfoot as he followed the paths down from the Chantry.

"Sleep well,?" he finally asked, both too far and too close for anyone to hear them. Varric's chuckle died quickly under Fahleon's withering look and he cleared his throat, dropping his eyes back to the knife in his hand. He flipped it once before sheathing it. "It wouldn't kill you to lighten up, would it?"

"Yes." Whatever the dwarf was hoping for, it wasn't that.

Varric rubbed at his brow. "That ruins the lighted-hearted official welcome to whatever the fuck it is we're about to get started here, you know." Fahleon lifted a shoulder in apology. "And, well, now that Cassandra is out of earshot...are you holding up alright?"

It was Varric's turn to catch him off guard. Fahleon expected some further teasing about his late night return or another poorly crafted joke about the fledgling Inquisition. There was something close enough to real concern in Varric's voice that made Fahleon uncomfortable, and he pursed his lips. Friends, Varric had called them, but he'd never had a say in the matter. They weren't friends. This had to be some attempt to gauge his strength or attitude or...something to be used against his later.

"You went from being the most wanted criminal in all of Thedas to the top of the armies of the faithful" he continued, whether he knew Fahleon was listening or not. "Most people would have spread that out over more than one day."

"I didn' have a choice," he finally answered. Varric's mouth twisted into something not quiet a frown. Fahleon covered it up with the door to the cabin when he swung it open. The bow was where he left it, newly cleaned and oiled and stacked to dry against the stonework of the open fireplace. 

"We'ce been staring at the Breach and whatever it's been spitting out for days. I don't think anyone would be in there and survive." Creators, he was still talking? "If this is a joke, it's better than the one is Maker is playing on all of us right now. I hope there's a damn good punch line coming. You might want to consider running at the first opportunity - I've written enough tragedies to know where this one is going."

"Already tried." Fahleon slung his bow over his shoulder and crossed his arms when Varric laughed. 

"Right, I almost forgot! We're going to need a bigger miracle than the one where you just show your face around here again."

"Cassandra thinks we can find one in the Hinterlands." Varric raised a brow and Fahleon pushed past him to head towards the rookery where Ada would be held. The dwarf still followed him and...and he was going to regret this. He could feel it, already, from the ringing from his ears, but the hinterlands was a big place. Lots of twists and turns to hide from. Lots of distance to make a break for it if it got too much. "Want to come?"

"Cassandra has a plan? Then I don't have a choice when it comes to her decisions."

Fahleon rolled his eyes. "I'm asking."

"As if I have a choice," he repeated with a laugh. He pat the crossbow at his back. "Bianca and I are at your service, whenever you need them."


	8. Chapter 8

Fahleon paused when he found Cassandra and Solas waiting by the stabled outside Haven's outer gates. Cassandra, he should have expected - after Leliana's report of Mother Giselle's interest and location and Cullen's encouragement to seek out help outside of the small town, she would have invited herself on the trip. It only made sense that she'd want to stay close to the one thing she wanted to keep her eye on, and Fahleon couldn't hate her for that. He had other reasons to hate her. Her glare, her sword, the way she parted her hair - that part of her wanted him dead. Solas had no excuse to invite himself, and Fahleon glared at him as he marched past them both to the horses. Three were were already saddled and laden heavy with packs. The mark sparked when he crossed in front the elf and he shook his hand out with a snort. A flash of color from the Breach turned the sky green. 

"Does it bother you?" Fahleon took his eyes off the horse to turn even further from her. He'd need to grow another hand to keep count of the number of times she'd asked him about it. Maybe he could ask Solas if magic could do that. Or if he'd cut his hand off to give it to her so she could experience the sting rather than ask every time. 

"It's fine." 

"It's going to be a long ride. Might as well start talking now," Varric said. 

"He's right," Cassandra agreed, from where she'd moved closer to the horses to tighten the straps on their flanks. Fahleon crossed his arms. "It will take a full day to get down the Frostbacks, even on horseback, and another still until we reach Redcliffe where we will find this Mother Giselle." She held a hand out to help him up and Fahleon stepped back. Varric took the open space and with a frown, she pulled the dwarf up. 

Horses were a man's beast of burden, treated even worse than their cattle, chained and stored and piled heavy with material things. They were bred, made docile, so lame that they'd break their own legs for their masters. They were far from the halla, free from any other beasts control. Just nearing one made Fahleon feel dirty. Tainted. More tainted, he supposed. Unless it was fear that made his blood run hot, but what reason did he have to fear a horse? As tall and heavy and thick hoofed as it was...skittish enough to kick him in the face if he moved wrong...

Fahleon turned to Solas and drew in a patient breath. "Do you know how to ride a horse?"

"Not well, I'm afraid," he admitted with a shake of his head and a chuckle that was more amusement than apology. Fahleon bristled. 

"I'll walk." Ada agreed with a screech and she took off in a hurry for a nearby tree. 

"Don't worry. You'll be riding with me," a woman said. A dwarf woman, Fahleon found, lowering his eyes to her. She reached a hand out to him and Fahleon ignored it. Her grin only widened. 

"A pleasure you could join us, Scout Harding," Cassandra said.

"Harding?" Varric peered around Cassandra's shoulder. "Where did you used to live before the demon-shitting asshole in the sky opened up?"

She paused after she settled herself on the horse with some help from Solas' taller frame. Fahleon would have told her to ignore the dwarf, but she was already thinking and she deserved whatever joke Varric would toss at her. "Outside of Denerim."

The grin on Varric's face twitched when Cassandra shot him a glare over her shoulder. "Ever been to Kirkwall?"

"Varric, no." Cassandra caught on and Fahleon agreed with her sigh, but the dwarf didn't hear her over his own snorts.

Harding's nose wrinkled. "Why would I go there? Heard it's a bit of a mess right now."

"Well, then you'd be Harding in High- ah, nevermind."

She was quick to forget the conversation and turned to the elves with another bright smile. Fahleon felt the need to raise a hand and shield his eyes from it. She took the chance to snatch at his wrist and tug him close to the horse. He dug his heels into the dirt and only moved forward when she relented. It took him another moment to gather enough strength - or courage - to get any closer and jump to swing his foot into a stirrup. Another moment and he'd settled him. Somewhat. He fidgeted with the hem of his pants and he swallowed down a small noise of panic when Harding nudged the horse forward.

"The Herald of Andraste, huh?" 

"Don't call me that," Fahleon said, even as he clung to her to keep his balance through all the bumps and sways of the saddle. She laughed. 

"Everyone's been talking about you and what you've done. I've heard all of the stories about what you did at the Breach." Fahleon pursed his lips. He lifted his chin when she leaned back into him and tilted her head back to direct her smile at him. He wouldn't give in. His lips trembled, one profanity or another ready on his tongue, and he struggled to swallow it down. Harding blew out a breath. "It's a bit odd for a Dalish elf to care about what happens to everyone else."

The curse slipped past. "I don't," he amended, and tightened his jaw, again, against any other denial. Or acceptance. This wasn't a ride in the woods for pleasure. 

The dwarf shrugged and Fahleon made sure to squash down the surprise at that. He settled his face back into an impassive frown.

"You won't be getting any back talk from me, if that's what you're waiting for - and that's a promise," she added. Creators - how many people could read his mind? "We all have our plans in mind and I can't judge you for any of yours. As Seeker Pentaghast said, I - all of us here - will do whatever we can to help you attain them. I'll be the one to meet you at the main forward camps and provide you with all the juicy gossip about the goings ons and ins about the area before you risk your neck for the rest of us. If there's a problem, you can let me know that and I'll send someone or something out." Her voice went low and Fahleon rubbed at his ear with an open palm. Josephine came to mind and he shook his head. 

"What's the gossip here?"

"The mage-templar fighting has gotten worse since the demons started showing up. There's no leadership on either side right now and it's forcing everyone to grab the first pointy thing they see - be that magic or a blade - whether they were a part of the fight at the start or not. It's made it impossible to get to Dennet, Redcliffe's old horsemaster. Cullen most likely brought him up, but I grew up around here and I know his horses are the fastest and strongest around but the old man himself? Maker knows if he's even still alive. But that Chantry woman you're seeking, Mother Giselle, is at a place called the Crossroads where she's helping the refugees and the wounded. Our latest report said that the fighting has spread there, too. Our men are doing what they can, but they won't hold out for much longer."

That was more than a bit of gossip. Fahleon hoped someone had taken the report in better than he had. "Anything else?" He grimaced and hoped there wasn't.

"They also say you're the last hope Thedas has."

"Ah. Fantastic." Fahleon tightened his grip on the saddle's edges. 

"You'll get used to it. Maybe," she laughed, and his grunt turned into a gasp he wouldn't admit to if asked. As if Solas or Cassandra heard him when the ground was suddenly flying beneath him. The horse picked up its pace at another nudge from Harding and Fahleon couldn't even think of anything to say, let alone say them, when all of his concentration was on staying upright. And now gripping Harding in front of him for better support.

He did fall when he kicked her attempt at helping him down when they reached a camp. His legs shook when they touched the combed dirt and he nearly tumbled in his haste to escape the horse with thighs that ached horse than a day's watch spent straddling a tree. His arms were too stiff to properly rest at his sides - or catch his fall. He sat, instead, and lifted his chin when Cassandra, with Varric, and Solas sidled into the camp. Varric's even worse attempt didn't comfort his pride, but the sight of his wiggling did cheer him up. 

Harding took the horses and guilded them towards a river that rounded out on side of the camp. It ran from the mountains they'd just climbed down from, far in the distance that night made look even further. Just beyond camp it fell over a high hill and down to the Hinterlands beneath them. Trees ringed the flat dirt Harding and her scouts had chosen, formed from flood waters, most like, that took over the clearing after too much snow melt in the spring. It made the ground soft. Enough to stain his pants and make the ground suck wetly when he rose to his feet. Enough to mark where each tent had been before Harding had packed up to turn around and fetch them. There were other, deep marks in the soil from a handful of fire pits. Paw prints darted between them.

"If I ever have to see another horse..." Varric muttered something else under his breath wheen Fahleon approached. The dwarf rubbed at the insides of his legs and Fahleon glanced away to find Solas, looking a shade green from his own ride. Cassandra remained composed, of course. A short gallop through the country couldn't do her any worse for wear. Or hinder her sight any. 

"Someone has been here," she said, and Fahleon sighed. Of course she would get the credit, too.

"More scouts, mayhaps. Or someone fleeing the war," Solas offered. He shrugged. "Either way, I have the feeling we may have uninvited guests towards dinner."

"Then we will set up a watch-"

"I'll do it." Fahleon cleared his throat of the interest lingering on his tongue. He needed the time. Alone. By himself. In quiet. Without Cassandra looking over his shoulder or Solas talking in his ear, but he had the thought they'd both find a way to do so even in their sleep. If they trusted him to watch over their sleeping forms at all. He wouldn't. Trust them or sleep, he knew, not when everything was still so... Fahleon grimaced. 

Whether Cassandra liked the idea or not, she relented with a stiff nod. Maybe he wasn't so bad. Maybe she just thought he'd have less of a chance of running off, but Fahleon had no guilt in the thought of leaving them behind if he did. He rolled his eyes. He'd been given the chance, twice now, to quit her mockery of an Inquisition. A third was just paranoia. 

Or insanity. 

Fahleon turned his back on them and faced the trees. It made...something clench at the sight of them. They weren't the tall and gnarled things of the Brecillian Forest, heavy with vines and lichens thick enough to turn the winding paths into mere shadows. They didn't resemble the softer, slimmer trunks of the forests around Kirkwall, stunted by the foundry ash. There was no home, here. No elves. Just himself, and his eyes flickering in the light of the fire Solas started in one of the abandoned pits.


	9. Chapter 9

Fahleon needed an excuse to start flinging arrows. Between the lack of sleep, Cassandra's constant glares, and Varric's insistent pacing, one was going to miss - accidentally - and hit either of them in the neck. The dwarf paced about the camp another time to rifle though the rations. Fahleon twitched at the sound of leather on leather and he rose to his feet when Varric tossed a wrapped package of salted meats towards him. He let it drop to the ground. 

Excuse be damned.

"I'm going hunting." Walking, more like. Away. Far away. Until his head stopped pounding and his teeth stopped grinding. Fahleon shoved his fingers in his mouth, careful of his teeth, and whistled a sharp note over Cassandra's disapproving tone. Ada tore from the branches to climb the winds above the tree tops. He reached for the pouch slung on his belt out of habit and his fingers back back sticky with old blood. Maybe not an entirely, made up reason to leave, he thought, raising his brows. 

"Where do you think you are going?"

Fahleon didn't take his eyes off the kite wheeling in the upper winds. "She won't eat that." He waited for Cassandra to protest with a tap of his fingers against his thigh. He tapped his third and laid it flat against his pants when she inhaled.

"I'm sure it will be fine on its own."

His nostrils flared. "She." He felt more than saw Solas coax a bundle of kindling into flame for the mornings...food...as static under his skin and he rubbed his palm along his pants. "I wont lose her. Again," he added with a narrow of his eyes. Solas did something else, brought the flame higher, it didn't matter. It itched, was the truth, and he scratched madly at his hand with a growl. 

What was he doing? Cassandra had asked for a leader when she'd thrown his back to the wall, kept in place by a templar, an assassin, and another woman who's words were as sharp as any of their blades. He didn't need to explain himself or make up some story to do what he wished. His whole...job was to do just that. He wished to walk, just for a moment, under the trees and bloody his hands. 

The woman was going to demand he stay put, again, and Fahleon pushed past her and her complaints. He let the shade of the wool cool his face and unslung his bow. He wouldn't need it, not when Ada would be doing to hunting herself, but the wood felt good in his grasp and having something to hold kept his hands busy from clawing another wound into his palm as the magic itched along it. He tilted his face to the skies and tracked the bird's movements beyond the glare of the rising sun.

Hunting alongside her was easier than breathing. Just as well, since irritation made his chest tight. Cold, mountain air filled his lungs and froze off what was left of the tension still sitting on his shoulders and cooled his temper. His head stopped aching and his feet steadied their pace through the woods. If he knew nothing about what he was supposed to do when he met with th Chantry mother or even what to do after, he at least understood everything about Ada. The way she paused the split second before a dive, the sudden twist of her body to push the full force of her small talons into her prey. Her screech of victory when it was over. It rang through the trees and Fahleon jogged to catch up. 

This was what he was meant for - shadows and silence and a weapon in his hand, the smell of dirt and coming rain and his own, even breathing. He was made for stalking the smaller creatures hidden beneath the trees, to chase them down and turn their skin and bones into something for use for him. Simple pleasures. Selfishness. Isolation. Nowhere did that include leadership. Communication. Thinking of others. Fahleon wrinkled his nose. 

If he thought anything, it was that none of them deserved to be saved from whatever threat currently ravaged Thedas. If the Conclave was just the start, Fahleon would stick around for the other fireworks. As a spectator, not a fighter. 

As if he had much choice in the matter, but it was a thought that didn't fail to bring a small smile to his lips. He made sure the expression was wiped off his face before he ducked back into the light of the camp clearing, hunt finished after Ada pounced on a squirrel. There wasn't any arrows to shoot off and little left of the creature to bloody his hands with, but his fingertips were stained pink after skinning what was left and pocketing what Ada hadn't finished for her later.

This was all he needed, after all. His bird, his bow, and his privacy. Two out of three wasn't...terrible. Inconvenient, but so long as he could continue ignoring those who took it away from him. Such as Cassandra's narrow eyed look as he dropped his things by a tent and Varric's raised hand of greeting as he circled the fire to warm his hands. The small smile threatened to return at their silence. 

Solas emerged from some corner of the camp, and Fahleon thwarted his attempts at conversation by pulling the skin from his pouch and setting it to dry on the stones keeping the flames contained. The scent of blood mingled with the blend of herbs boiling in a pot above them to curl into a mess of unpleasing smells that was good to dissuade both insects and elves. The disgusted noise that left Solas made his lips quirk. 

It wasn't so effective with dwarves. Varric inched closer, and Fahleon kept a careful eye on his not so subtle shifting. He paused when Ada flitted to his shoulder and Fahleon rolled his shoulder to make her shriek before lifting a piece of leftover meat to her. She tore at his finger.

"So, you and the bird?" 

"No story." Fahleon frowned when he found Varric nearly at his side. At least his smile had dropped from cheery to something normal. His face was pale so close to Ada, eyes flicking between her beak and her talon as if she'd use them to rip out his teeth at any moment. It wasn't the worst idea she'd had. He tossed a second piece towards the woods and the kite lunged after it. Varric filled in the space she left.

Varric was close enough to nudge him, and he did. Fahleon leaned away from the touch and the dwarf hooked his thumbs in the buckles of his pants, instead. "There's always a story, and with the kind of eyes you look at that animal of yours, there's definitely a good one."

He bristled. If this was just a question to ask in a way to pass the time, Varric could busy himself better by coming up with a story of his own than to bother him for an answer he wouldn't give if he wanted to talk about her like that. Even better if he did it somewhere further away from him. Far away. 

Fahleon closed his eyes and, in unusual patience, eased out a slow breath. It was easier if he just the conversation over with. "I found her on the ground - probably tried to fly. She was hurt. There weren't any other birds. I took her with me and fed her until she was better. I brought her back but she didn't leave. End of story."

"That can't be the end-" Fahleon shut him up with a sharp look. Varric dutifully closed his mouth and rocked back on his heels. "You're leaving out all the best parts, though."

Fahleon struggled to keep the apprehension off his face. "Humor me," he parroted, with more confusion than Varric had voiced. The dwarf grinned. 

"Seems to me you left out all the mystery, all the passion! All the parts that say that the bird of your's wasn't the only one to be saved that day." Fahleon narrowed his eyes, but Varric only settled on the ground in front of him. Fahleon sighed. He was in for the long haul, now. "See, what you're doing is a bluff. Right there," he said, pointing, but Fahleon didn't see anything out of the ordinary. His tunic was a bit more wrinkles and his pants had a new stain...whatever Varric was looking for wasn't there, but he only pointed more insistently. "There. Your eyebrows." 

Fahleon rubbed at the space between them with his thumb. 

"The mystery is why you brought her home. To fill some hole, right? So let me guess. You lost someone or you got lost yourself. You were scared and someone took you in and-"

Fahleon clenched his jaw until his teeth ached. "Stop."

Varric lifted his hands in surrender. "You can keep your bluff, but your face says it all. Might be easier if you thought about trusting some of us sooner rather than later, too, because if this goes how I see it happening, you're going to need friends - and not just me."

"We're not friends." Even less so after Varric's attempt at not prying. He was further than a stranger, in all areas. Fahleon barely knew him, barely understood him, and after this...had drastically underestimated him. 

"Of course we're not, Smiles," he said, and Fahleon backed away from the hand that was stretched out to - what? - pat him? Hit him? Choke him? He snorted at Varric's wilting smile and turned. 

Solas met the full force of his sneer but it was Cassandra that earned his bite when she grabbed his arm and spun him around. He gnashed his teeth and growled. She didn't flinch and it made his cheeks warm. Was he so common faced for them to grow used to his ire so quickly?

"Someone was out for the Divine's life and may be out for yours as well," as if that explained the need for her hands on him. Hadn't she wanted his life just days go, too? He jerked his arm but she only curled her fingers tighter around it. "With the mage-templar war spreading we are in more danger of bandits and rogue mages. You cannot run off every time-"

"You care for me now?" he snarled. 

"I am warning you that I am watching every move you make," she snapped back, returning every ounce of vehemence Fahleon gave her. It stung harder than the slap she'd hit him with the first time they met and he rubbed at his mouth. Cassandra gave him another pointed glare before releasing him, and Fahleon whirled for the other side of camp. 

It was one more night before Harding was back from her rendezvous with the camp in the Hinterlands proper. One more night of the feeling of eyes on his back - Cassandra's eyes, it was confirmed. Not that he hadn't known without her telling him so. He spat. Varric wanted him to trust her? Or any of them? Halla shit. He'd trust them when they started trusting him. Solas would take the first chance his guard was down to cut open his hand to see how it worked and Varric was one second away from sticking a bolt in his back. Cassandra would do it from the front. 

Better not to take his chances. Just as in Haven, Fahleon found a reasonably sized tree and wriggled himself up the trunk to wedge himself in the nook of two sturdy branches. He called to Ada with a whistle and she left the bones pecked clean for the limb above him. It made his nerves ease, just a fraction, to have her nearby, even if she'd tucked her beak in the ruff of thick feathers around her neck to sleep. How lucky she was to be oblivious of it all.

"Traitor," he muttered, and she squawked something undignified for a lady at the disturbance. A quick swipe of a talon at his head put a shallow cut above his brow and he wiped away the sting before folding his bands behind his head to cushion it against the bark as he eyed the rest of the camp.

Varric had taken up a spot further from the fire and Solas had retired to his tent. He narrowed his eyes and rolled onto his side when Cassandre met his gaze. He wouldn't sleep, not with her knowing where he was, and it would leave him with more time than he liked to think. 

At dawn, they'd travel the rest of the down the Frostbacks following scout Harding's latest report on the mage-templar war and make their way to the horse master's farm. They'd find the Chantry woman and after that...he scowled. He'd do whatever he was told to.

Close the Breach. Find the suspect at the Conclave. Save Thedas. Everything in between was just small talk.

But after all that? Would he be free to leave? To return home? Pretend like none of it ever happened? Would he be the Chantry's dog by then, begging for every scrap of praise and wagging his tail when he was given another job or two? And the anchor - what would happen to that after all that time passed?

Fahleon rubbed at his eyes. Creators, he really should have just ran.


	10. Chapter 10

"We're descending the valley," Cassandra warned when the rocky slope of the Hinterlands turned steep and muddy. There were signs of fighting even here, higher in the hills: scorch marks that raked the grass and clawed up the bark of trees, glaciers big enough to look out of place even in Fereldan's winter, and the faint screech of metal on metal from some fight not yet far off. It made Fahleon's fingers around his bow twitch. The further they followed the path the worse the signs became. Ashes were still hot and, in some places, fires still crackled to consume what was left of hovels and the animals trapped on the land. 

It was altogether...underwhelming. Cassandra had stressed the matter so harshly he'd come to expect piles of corpses, some still walking from the possession of one demon or another. For templars to be slaughtering the innocents out of just the fear of magic use. His armed burned more with the presence of rifts than it did from the use of his bow - the only demons they'd encountered so far only dropped from the tears in the air like flies. And the flies were more numerous. 

Not that all the druffolo droppings Fahleon stepped around where attracting them or anything. 

Maybe this had been a bad idea, he thought, as he scraped dung off the bottom of his soles while Cassandra and Varric wooed the horsemaster into working with them. There were several no's followed by a series of choice words that he couldn't help but nod along with. It was a good thing to keep him out of the room while they spoke - Fahleon didn't think he could keep himself from telling Dennet to walk away while he still had the chance. They could find horses anywhere, really, now that everything was on fire. There had to be another farm somewhere left abandoned from the fighting they could steal a few mounts from. Fahleon was no halla keeper and a horse was no halla but the...anatomy was still the same. He thought. Hoped. 

Varric slapped a piece of parchment against his thigh and Fahleon prayed before he peeled it from the dwarf's fingers to get a look at it. Jagged lines and squiggly curves mirrored a crude version of some of the pages he'd glanced at in the war room. A map, then, with just a few more marks added to it. Fahleon flipped it upside down before handing it back. 

"You just love making friends, don't you, Smiles?" Varric chuckled without humor and rolled the map up. 

"The horse master has refused to work with the Inquisition," Cassandra clarified. "But he did say there were errands we could run to make him...more persuadable."

"Is that what we do now?" Fahleon felt himself make a face that matched her furrowed brow and down turned mouth and cleared his expression into something more resembling boredom. 

"If it gets us his horses, it is what we do." Fahleon let out a breath through his nose. "We've been...asked," Cassandra, continued, through tight teeth, "to chase a pack of wolves from the farmland and secure several areas in the valley to make way for watchtowers."

Varric waved the map and Fahleon snatched it from his grasp to glance at again. He eyed one of the wigglier lines. It looked a bit like the hill they'd passed on the way to get here. 

"Let's get started."

 

He wouldn't say he was enjoying his work with the Inquisition, Fahleon thought as he let another arrow fly at a rabid wolf. He wouldn't say Cassandra was a warrior worthy of her sword even as she finished the beast off with a swing that took its head off at the shoulders. There was a howl from deeper in the cave followed by an unholy screech he was, unfortunately, growing accustomed to. A demon had taken shelter within the cave, but Fahelon's hand stung with only the smack of his bowstring against his fingers with no static that came with coming close to a rift. He grinned, all teeth, and marched inside, arrow nocked.

He half expected to find Tamlen stalking behind him, and with all the noise Solas and the rest made as they made their way into the cave, it could have been. He almost believed it, too, when the demon fell under his arrow and his snarl sent the rest of the wolves running deeper into the caverns. One less threat to the camp, one more day for the clan - but Tamlen had fallen from a similar arrow and there were dozens, if not hundreds of more demons to fell before his clan was safe. Fahleon let out a breath and turned away from the sight of Varric clearing out several rotten knapsacks left behind from some unlucky refugee. He felt a familiar tension settle between his shoulders and he rolled them with a soft pop. He added a frown to his face for good measure. 

"The last watchtower should be just above this cave," Solas said, and Fahleon pulled out the map to mark his own line within the others drawn on the picture. It was...probably in the right place. 

He found Ada perched on a tree just outside the caves and called for her to settle on his shoulder. Her talons dug in deep to the leather that protected him from her, and he worked one leg free to tie off the map. Another whistle and she took off in the direction of home. He pursed his lips. Would she go to Haven or to Skyhold? He'd find out, later, but he'd get the horses he was owed well before that. 

They were less skittish than the ones they'd rode down the mountains with, and the horses moved easily though the carnage of the mage-templar war. What was left of it. The fade rifts had taken over and both sides had turned to fend off the demons that poured from them before they focused on killing each other again. If only the Chantry could see them - there'd be no need for any of this Inquisition business. He could go back to the Free Marches, Cassandra could stalk some other innocent soul with threat of death and Solas could bother someone with a longer attention span. He hadn't thought of what Varric could do in the meantime, but he had plenty of time - all of it was wishful thinking in the end. 

Fahleon shook his hand out after the rift was closed. His fingers felt slimy, greasy, with magic and he wiped it on his leggings. He raised a brow when the templars turned to him. He rolled his eyes and unslung his bow a second time. The templars didn't look much more inclined to meet them in a fight, either, with their shields held low and their helmets left behind. Foolish of them, in the end. Demon, templar, innocent - so long as they stood in the way he had no resolve to yield. Fahleon drew his bow flush against his cheek through the sting of his fingers and let it loose to wedge in the naked skin of the neck of the closest man. Solas through a wave of magic at them before they could scramble for their helmets and Cassandra picked up the momentum. The mages they stumbled upon on their way to the Crossroads met a similar, if more messy, fate, and Fahleon knocked his leggings free of ice against the low stone walls that ringed the refugee camp. 

There were cries of help - that he ignored - complaints about hunger and cold and pain - which he also ignored. Names were shouted from one corner of the camp to the other as loved ones sought each other out in the aftermath. Fahleon kept his gaze forward and his steps quick through the mud made from rains as much as blood. The others were not as determined, and he found himself alone after a winding path around cots and low tables towards a stash of supplies overseen by a red robed woman. The great, rising sun that made up most of it was similar enough to the Grand Chancellor's for Fahleon to pick out Mother Giselle within them. 

"Don't let them touch me." A man occupying one of the cots, wounded or sick, snarled as vehemently as he could through the rasp of a dry throat. "I won't let a mage-"

"These are good men, men willing to help you. Let them tend to your wounds," the Chantry woman said - a gentle reprimand. Fahleon crossed his arms. 

"Mother Giselle." He didn't ask. 

"The Herald of Andraste," she said, returning the gesture with a slight dip of her head. Fahleon snorted and he narrowed his eyes when her lips curled into a small smile. "We seldom have the choice in what decides our fate, but it is what we do with the hand He gives us that makes who we are. Not what others perceive us as."

"Is that one of your songs?"

Her smile twitched. "Not one I know, if it is at all. I will not presume to know what the Maker intends for any of us."

Fahleon rubbed at a temple. "You wanted to see me."

Mother Giselle smiled the same little quirk of her lips again. "Yes, I did not ask you here to debate with me. I know of the Chantry's denouncement - and I am familiar with those who voice them. Some of them are simply grandstanding in the hopes of increasing their favor with the Chantry to become the next Divine. Others are truly terrified of what happened, of who you are, and what might mean for them. After so many good people were senselessly taken from us..." She motioned for him to walk and he followed her through the camp. 

It wasn't any more impressive the second time, and the far corner of the medical tents was a worse corner than the others. It smelled like piss and vomit and the mud sucked at his feet and chilled his toes even within his boots, but he appreciated the privacy the stench afforded. 

"That's their reason? They're afraid so they'll make everything worse?"

"My point is," the Mother explained, chided, " is that they do not know the real danger. You must convince the remaining clerics that you are not the demon they should be fearing." Fahleon scowled. "I only mean that they have heard frightful stories of you. Give them another story to believe in. You do not have to convince all of them - just enough to make them doubt. Their power lies in their unified voice, as you have seen. If you take that from them, you will receive all the time you need."

"You want me play into their trap. They want me dead already."

"You are no longer alone." 

Fahleon cursed. He'd leave that bit of advice out of the report he gave to Cassandra when he was finished with Mother Giselle. Even then, he'd give it out of earshot. Creators, Varric could have likely heard it already. Let him say what he would - he'd ignore it. Whatever the dwarf had in store for him, it wouldn't affect the next stage of the Inquisition. Because he was not only going along with the charade, but was making plans for it, too. Fahleon dragged a hand down his face. He'd leave that bit out, too. 

The Mother dipped her head again. "I will go to Haven and provide Sister Leliana with the list of names of those in the Chantry who would be amenable to a gathering. I honestly do not know if you've been touched by fate or sent to help us... but I hope," Mother Giselle admitted, and Fahleon would have called her fearful from the way she clutched at the the symbol that hung around her neck. "Hope is what we need now, more than anything. The people - they will listen to your rallying call as they will listen to no other. You could build this Inquisition into a force that will deliver us. Or destroy us."

Fahleon cleared his throat and turned when that infuriating smile was back on her face. 

"I will do what I can for now. It is not much, but it is all I can provide for the moment."

His thank you was short and unvoiced, but a nod sent her back to the cots to calm the wounded that still required healing, magically or otherwise. He didn't watch her leave, but scanned the refugees for a familiar face. A familiar voice spoke in his ear, unsettling close, and Fahleon shoved Solas away from him before he could finish. The mage brushed it off. 

"Was her advice helpful?" he asked, as he smoothed down his tunic. Fahleon rolled a shoulder. Whether the list of names provided anyone willing to hear them out wouldn't be determined until Mother Giselle reached Haven with it. It would take time, still, even after that to set the meeting up. 

All in all, it was stupid question. 

"Then it's been decided that we'll head back to Haven to regroup," Varric grumbled. Fahleon heard a complaint behind his words. Cassandra shook her head above him like the shadow she was - ever present and always darkening the mood. 

"It will be some time before any more can be done," she said, as Fahleon had thought. "We will talk to Corporal Vale to see what we can do for the people here."

Varric cursed an impressive string of words and Fahleon raised a brow. Maybe they could be friends.


	11. Chapter 11

Fahleon's schedule was cleared after an armful of blankets, a cart full of ram, and the ransack of two templar settlements. He dumped the supplies at the edge of the Crossroads and left to see to the rest of his headache back in Haven.

"Val Royeaux," Leliana sighed, a bit too dreamily and a bit too close to his ear. Fahleon picked up his pace and his frown tightened when she kept up. His shorter legs tired after a few steps and his ear twitched at the laugh under his breath. "The Chantry spokesmen have agreed to gather in the square." 

A gathering. The thought left a bad taste in his mouth, but calling it a meeting or a council didn't have any of the venom in the word either. A charade. A farce. Fahleon dragged his tongue across the edge of his teeth. That sounded more like the nest of vipers he was walking into - pushed into. So long as it was short he didn't care what she called it. 

Josephine was waiting within the war room, one hand splayed across the corner of a map to smooth the curled edges flat, the other tapping away against her tablet with the tip of her quill. Fahleon gave it a brief glance, refusing to show interest in it and too distracted by the uneven pattern of her quill to try to puzzle out the meaning of the haphazard squiggles. She'd explain it to him, anyway, whether he asked her to or not. Fahleon leaned a hip against the table and didn't have to wait long for one. He rubbed at a temple.

"Having the Herald address the clerics may not be such a terrible idea," she started, trailing off. She pursed her lips when she raised her eyes to him and Fahleon lifted a shoulder. It wouldn't be a terrible idea if the Chantry didn't mind a few of their flock returning without their tongues. 

"You can't be serious," Cullen laughed with a sweep of his arms. Fahleon kept his mouth shut on his agreement, if it meant he could take the tongues from the first brother or sister that wagged one at him.

"You have to agree that Mother Giselle isn't wrong," Josephine argued. She put the quill down and let the map roll in on itself as she folded her hands in front of her. "At this moment, at least. It is true that the Chantry's only strength is that they are united only in opinion."

He shoved her argument away with another wave of his hand. "You're asking us to just ignore the threat to the Herald?"

Fahleon's lip curled at the title and pulled into a proper sneer when Cullen turned all the way to look at him. If the templar, ex or not, was looking for approval, he wouldn't get it. Not verbally, at least. He'd rather not meet the Chantry people, whether they were willing to talk or were just there for the show of it. He'd rather not meet another sunrise in Haven, either, but he had no say in the matter. 

"We'll ask him," Josephine, said, smug, and his refusal was more of a question than a demand. He felt off balance under her scrutiny. The change left him dizzy and he furrowed his brow when she raised an eyebrow. Cullen covered his mouth with a fish and gave a polite cough. 

"I won't-" he started to repeat himself, but she cut him off with a shake of her head.

"You won't die just because they don't like you."

"I'll go with you," Cassandra said, stated more like, following the groan of the great wooden doors as she finally entered the room. Her arms were crossed even before she'd lifted her chin to look down on Fahleon. He bristled under her gaze, the hairs on his arms lifting at her proximity. He didn't need her protection anymore than he needed her permission - not that her protection meant much. Not when she was always one twitch of her fingers from cutting his throat. "Mother Giselle said she would provide us with names and she has. Use them," she added with a sense of finality that left him fuming. 

Still, his input meant little, as if he wasn't the only being in Thedas with the power to save it from...something. Fahleon blew out a breath. 

"I don't think we need to go that far. This is only-"

Cassandra interrupted Leliana with an impatient noise. "We must use everything available to us. Josephine has told us that we cannot approach for anyone for hope with the Breach. For now, we can, however, use the influence we do have with the clerics provided to call them together. Once they are ready, we will see this through." 

It didn't take long for the clerics to prepare themselves, and whether that was a sign of interest or underestimation had yet to be seen. The letter that reached Haven within a fortnight had all the necessary details of the meeting place and time, withholding any condescending language and Fahleon took it with confidence. Unless Leliana had taken out those parts when she'd read it to him. He frowned. His confidence in the clerics hadn't been high at the start, anyway. It didn't have far to fall. And so he stared, uneasily, up at a horse again but without Scout Harding to lend him a hand up. He remembered most of the process, and though he was none less graceful as Varric or Solas as he righted himself with as minimal fidgeting as he could, he was more than glad to struggle than to accept Cassandra's offer of help. 

She settled her glare to a point somewhere just beyond her own horse's head and took over the other aspect of Harding's job and explained Val Royeaux's current state.

"The city still mourns," she started, and Fahleon let her words buzz idly in the back of his head. The journey to the city would take half the time it had to get to Redcliffe, and his thighs appreciated the brief and easy ride down the mountains. He'd almost gotten used to the pattern of the horse's sway beneath him until it stopped, suddenly, and he wobbled to stay upright. A scout raised her arms in front of her face, pacifying. 

"You're one of Leliana's people," Cassandra said, dismounting. "What have you found?"

"The Chantry mothers await you, but...so do a great many templars," the scout reported.

"The templars? Here?"

"Maybe they intend to hear us out as well. Or to help," Solas offered. 

The scout's mouth twisted and she shook her head. "The people seem to think the templars with protect them from...from, well, the Inquisition."

Cassandra's frown deepened - if it had changed it all. Her scowl curled into outright disgust and Fahleon crossed his arms out of habit. His fingers brushed against the fletching his arrows and he rolled his shoulders just to reassure him of the weight of the bow at his back. He wouldn't say he understood his ire - he rarely understood any of the activity occurring around him - but he knew enough that the templars were not here to help the Inquisition. Nor the people gathered to watch the Chantry clerics spit and poke at the Herald. The templars must have recognized what little weight the Inquisition had to throw around and had come to have their fun alongside the mothers. Let them, then. It meant little to him and when the demons gnawed that their pointing fingers he'd feel no remorse looking away. 

"They're gathering on the other side of the market," the scout said as she rose out of a bow. She dipped her head a second time. "I think that's where the templars intend to meet you, as well. If you'll follow," she added, with a third bob of her head. Cassandra snorted. 

"What else are we to do?" she asked, and Fahleon had the idea it wasn't to turn right around and ignore the templars. She started ahead towards the large, golden gates that separated the city from the rest of Orlais, and he had little choice but to follow after. If she was to decide everything, it was only fair that she spoke instead of him. The snarl he'd prepared might have scared the mothers, but it would do nothing but amuse the templars. That display would only make the Inquisition look the joke that it was. Fahleon shook his hand out before digging his nails into the meat of his palm as the mark burned. He clenched his fist tighter with every flinch of the people they passed. They jumped out of the way for them - or, him, specifically. The Herald. The harbinger of heresy. His lip quirked at the thought.

"I think they know who we are, Seeker," Varric drawled, and Cassandra scoffed. 

"I am always impressed by your perception," she said with a roll of her eyes. Varric grinned and tossed a look at Fahleon. He almost returned it, until he caught himself. 

"It can't be any worse than the grattifi on these statues," he continued, and jerked a thumb at the plague of the closest one. Fahleon made out one of the words etched within the metal workings, and raised his brow at the picture, more crudely added, chipped below it. Cassandra's red face made his clear his throat until the chuckle that threatened to escape subsided.

"Focus. I know Lord Seeker Lucius. I can't imagine him supporting the Chantry after everything that has happened. He must have his own agenda in mind." She paused and glanced at the scout just a step ahead. "Return to Haven and alert them if we are...delayed."

Fahleon rolled his eyes and pushed past Cassanda and the scout to enter the square. It was crowded with the masses of the foolish, the faithful, and the foolishly faithful. It wasn't difficult to tell them apart. The clerics wore robes similar to the Chancellor's, all white and close-fitting, marred only by the red, rising sun stitched along the hem. The rest wore a mockery of clothes. Dresses wider than a druffalo's rump spread out along the cobblestones, more reflective than the shallow pools of the dozen fountains that marked each turn of Val Royeaux's bazaar. The men were more reasonably dressed except for the shoes the wore, and all hid their faces behind gold-painted masks. It made Fahleon's eyes hurt to look at them, but the sight at the end of them was even worse. An elevated speaking platform had been erected at the edge of the square and already several of the clerics had gathered above it. Taunts and condolences fell from their lips like spoiled molasses. 

"...our Divine," one of the Chantry woman was saying, louder and sweeter than the rest. "Her naive and beautiful heart silenced by treachery! You wonder what will happen to her murderer? Well wonder no more!" The small space amongst the throng Fahleon had wedged himself into felt too large under the glare of her eyes. It widened when she pointed a finger at him as the people drew back, gasping and glaring. Fahleon didn't raise to the bait. He'd been given worse just for the shape of his eyes - the accusation of murder wasn't the first offense he'd been charged with - but killing a Divine had a better ring to it than stealing children for soup. He met her sharp gaze with a lift of his chin. "Behold the so called Herald of Andraste! Claiming to rise where our beloved fell! We say this is a false prophet! The Maker would not send us an elf in our hour of need!"

There it was. He'd been wondering when she'd fall back on his race. 

He felt Cassandra close in behind him, but he didn't need her near to stop himself from spitting out his own choice words in retaliation. It wouldn't do him, or the Inquisition, any favors. Demanding their tongues would make him feel better, though. 

"The Inquisition seeks only to end the madness of the Breach before it is too late," Cassandra argued. Fahleon nodded and the Chantry cleric pursed her lips. 

"Your Herald hides his lies behind others, it seems. But it is already too late to prove yourselves." She waved an arm and the platform filled with silver armor and flaming swords. "The templars have at long last returned to the Chantry. They will face this 'Inquisition' and the people will be safe once more!"

"Incorrect," one of the templars said. Fahleon didn't blink as he shoved his way forward, knocking one cleric to the floor when she got in his way. Behind him, Fahleon heard Cassandra hiss out the Lord Seeker's name under her breath.

"Lucius, it is imperative that I speak with-"

"You will not address me," he snapped, and Fahleon had never seen Cassandra lose her balance so quickly before. It was...unsettling, at the least, to watch her brows knit together and her mouth hang open. It wasn't a feeling of victory or smugness that filled his stomach with something bitter, and he almost wished it was. "Creating a heretical movement, raising up a puppet in Andraste's name...you should be ashamed of yourself. You all should be ashamed! The templars failed no one when they left the Chantry to purge the mages. You are the ones who have failed," he said, turning to look down at the cleric at his feet. "You, who would leash our righteous swords with doubt and with fear." His face was shaded with the deepness of his scowl when he faced the Inquisition. "If you came to appeal to the Chantry then you are too late. The only destiny here that demands respect is mine!"

Fahleon scratched at cheek and glanced briefly over his nails. They'd never been even, but they'd grown more chipped and black since working with the Inquisition - and much more interesting than whatever a templar had to demand of him. "Any other speeches? Like why you came here, then?"

The Lord Seeker snorted. "I came to see what frightens these old women so - and to laugh."

A whisper started up within the crowd of templars, doubt or fear or uncertainty. They hadn't known this reason, it seemed, but Lucius silenced their questions with a glare. "You are called to a higher purpose. Do not question it. For I will make the templar Order a power that stands, alone, against the Void. We deserve independence. We deserve recognition. This Inquisition has shown me nothing that can do this for us. It has shown me less than nothing and it will not be protected by the templar Order. Val Royeaux will not be protected. We march!"

"Isn't he a charming fellow," Varric chuckled, dryly, and Fahleon grunted an agreement. The templars took no time in collecting their helmets and descending the platform after the Lord Seeker. He led them through a long, winding path through the streets like it was some kind of parade, a show of power, a denial of that the city had lost. A show. Of power, of shame. It wasn't much, in his own opinion. Yet, fear was plain on the people's face, even behind their masks, and it only grew when they turned to see the Inquisition was still among them. There was no one between them, now, no Chantry, no templars...it wasn't as effective a lesson as cutting down a demon in front of their eyes, but it worked. He watched a few of the nobles turn their faces up to the sky, up to the Breach, and shiver. 

"Lord Seeker Lucius has gone made," Cassandra added, distant. "He was always something of a decent man. He has never given in to ambition or grandstanding after he took over from Lord Seeker Lambert's death but...maybe I have misjudged him. This is all...very bizarre."

"There's a hole in the sky and demons are popping out of the Fade like weeds. I don't think one man thinking he's better than everyone else qualifies as bizarre anymore, Seeker," the dwarf pointed out, but he shook his head with a sigh and crossed his arms. "Well, so much for Curly's plan of getting help from the templars. It doesn't look like they'll be any good to us after all."

"As if they would have been from the start," Solas commented. Varric gave him a small smile.

"I wouldn't write them off too quickly," Cassandra frowned. "There must still be some still left in the Order that has seen what he has become. They could still listen to reason."

"Or they're all just as crazy," Varric said, and Fahleon snorted. 

"The mages could be no less worse. But they also might be more willing to listen."

"To Redcliffe, then?" Solas asked, and Cassandra nodded, hesitant, eyes still far away. She still flung an arm out in front of herself and Fahleon snarled at the sudden touch, halfway to shoving her off when an arrow embedded itself into the cobblestone in front of his feet. He stepped back in a hurry and snapped his head to the buildings above him to look for a shooter, but in the crowd still lingering it was difficult to point anyone out. He turned back to the arrow and watched Varric pluck a note from the shaft. 

"You're going to want to read this, Smiles."


	12. Chapter 12

"We shouldn't trust the word of this...friend," Cassandra said, and she paused as if Fahleon had something to add. He stared at the roll of parchment Varric had spread out on one of the few tables spread out beneath an awning within Val Royeaux's square and reached over it for one of the fruits the servants had provided. His nose wrinkled when he found it too sweet and let the rest of it fall from his tongue to splat on the table. Cassandra rubbed at her forehead. "To shoot an arrow at the Herald after such a display and demand such measures..."

That didn't answer any of his questions. Creators, he had to do everything himself. "Demands?" Fahleon wiped the seeds from the fruit on his tunic and raised a brow when Cassandra looked at him through the hand still on her head. He took a breath. "I can't read."

Cassandra cleared her throat and lowered her hand to her cheek to hide the flush forming there. "Of course. We've been...instructed to find items to gain the trust of the sender. Three items, exactly, hidden within the city. They've helpfully supplied us with the hint that all the items are red." She balled up the parchment and tossed it to the ground.

"Or it could be the help we've been seeking," Solas said.

"You would be fool enough to trust in this?"

Solas shrugged. "Would you be foolish enough not to?" He apologized afterwards with a small dip of his head, but Cassandra bristled no less. Fahleon ignored it and dug his hand into the bowl for a different snack. His fingers came back sticky and he licked one clean. "You said so yourself, Seeker. The Inquisition does not have many friends, least of all anyone to turn to for help. This may be a chance to get what we need. And if it is not..." He gestured to the sword that hung at her side, and smiled when Cassandra laid a hand on the pommel. 

"I see," was all she responded with.

Fahleon finished picking through the too sweet fruits and spat out a pit. "I can't read but I'm not colorblind," he said, rising, too fast for Cassandra to grab a hold of his arm to pull him back into his seat. 

"You would go along with this folly?" She clenched her teeth over another argument. "We are not desperate enough for this."

"I have to agree with Chuckles, though, Seeker. That makes you outvoted," Varric pointed out with a grin. Cassandra made a disapproving noise in the back of her throat.

The first item was beneath a table across from them. A red scarf was caught around one of the legs and wrapped inside its fold was another scrap of paper. Fahleon had seen enough curved lines to know it was a piece of a map. A treasure hunt it was, then, and not too difficult of a one. A red pouch was stashed among a pile of others by the harbor master's stall and a red book rested, open, by one of handful of fountains that ringed the square. Together, the lines converged at a smaller courtyard just outside Val Royeaux's main square. A sunset or...a sunrise drawn into a corner gave a time of the meeting. Fahleon flipped the pieces around but it didn't make the image less clear. He prayed it was sunset the map suggested - he wouldn't have spent the night in the city if they Maker himself told him too and it was almost a relief to see the guards that ringed the small, offset courtyard or the weapons that they carried. 

He was surprised by the man that paraded into the center of them. Although, so far, everyone intent on ridiculing or killing him had grandstanded and gloated before. Shems were crazy, Fahleon, snorted, and he lowered his bow when the man spreads his arms out wide, gathering everyone's attention. Crazy and stupid. Or powerful enough to be so confident in his ability that he didn't feel the need to wear armor to attack from a defensible position. Fahleon would have rather called him stupid. 

"Herald of Andraste," he crowed after a minute of silence. He crossed his arms with a tilt of his chin and sniffed delicately, as if the mere title smelled bad. Fahleon turned his nose to his shoulder and lifted a shoulder. Being surrounded by shems that wanted him dead with every breath did tend to make an elf sweat. "How much did you expend to find me out? It must have weakened the Inquisition immeasurably!"

Fahleon glanced back at Cassandra and she ran a hand down the side of her face. Fahleon shook his head. "Guess we are a little hungry." He heard Varric choke on a laugh to the side of him.

The man sputtered, hand going to the mask covering his face to fix his composure. "You don't fool me," he continued, and will the gall or bravery or greater stupidity, turned his back to them. "I'm much too important for this to have been an accident. My efforts will survive in victories against you elsewhere!"

"We don't even know you," Cassandra told him.

Fahleon rolled the fletching of an arrow slowly with his fingers and blew out a breath when the noble tossed her words back at her with an exasperated wave of his hands. The shadows shifted and Fahleon glanced the armed men in the courtyard with a narrow gaze. He lifted the arrow from the quiver, slowly, and twitched when the noble snorted. In the darkness, a small, thin shape jumped between pillars and rolled behind one of the raised garden beds. Bright eyes glinted over the petals closed for the night and Fahleon relaxed his hold on his bow. A friend, it seemed. Their friend. 

"Impossible! You must have..." the man trailed off as his human ears finally picked up on the noise - or lack there of. The guards that had flanked the square were gone, and the clank of their armor as they shifted was replaced with a snicker. Magic built up under Fahleon's skin and a green glow turned the noble's face pale, paler, and Fahleon shook the sparks fluttering from the mark out. They sputtered in the cobblestone and left smoke curling around another elf's feet. 

"Just say what," she cackled. The noble drew in a breath and Fahleon's lip quirked.

"What in the-" was all he managed before a wet gurgle interrupted him. The elf's knocked arrow took the air, and blood, from his throat as it passed clean through. The sight made Fahleon's toes curl. 

"You heard me right?" the elf asked. Behind the flicker of her eyes was another light that he found oddly familar, comforting, and he nodded. She held her bow loose in her grasp, rocking it lightly in her palm to point to the bleeding noble. Fahleon pulled the arrow out of the wound with a wet sound and wiped it clean on the man's puffed tunic. She grabbed a hold of it with a grin when he held it out, fletching first. "'Just say what' I told 'im. Rich tits always try for more than they deserve. Blah blah blah, obey me - arrow in the face!" She slid the arrow back into her quiver. "Well I know who you are, and you followed the notes well enough. Glad to see you're..."

Fahleon's eyebrows rose, first, and lowered, second, when she frowned. 

"You're an elf." Fahleon felt himself frown along with her. She sounded too much like Solas had. "Maybe not...too elfy?"

"Too elfy," he repeated, low and rough. She lifted her hands, but not in apology. There was no apology in the straightness of her shoulders, the slight bend of her knees, the grin on her face. Confidence had her laughing and it grated on his ears. 

"I mean, it's all good, right? The only important thing is you glow, right? You're the Herald thingy everyone's been losing their heads over?"

Too efly, Fahleon thought, again. He was the Herald, not an elf or a human. Just Andraste's champion. The Maker's gift. Closer of Rifts. Forgiven and accepted for as long as it took for the Breach to be sealed. Only then would he be an elf once more and not one second earlier.

"I glow," he growled. "You?"

Her laugh was a series of snorts he didn't find amusing. "I don't glow - I just listen. To my friends. The friends of Red Jenny. I don't know this piss from manners but my friends told me that the Inquisition should take a look at him. Real easy to do now," she snickered with a wave of her hand over the corpse. Fahleon didn't look at him. He should have listened to Cassanda when she told him to forget about the note. The ride back to Skyhold and its accompanying ache in his thighs from his grip on the horse, his unsteady perch, and the headache of conversation sounded much more preferable than being called 'too elfy' a second time. The not elfy elf raised her brows expectantly and Fahleon kept his lips firmly shut. He heard Solas tap his staff against the cobblestone.

"You're friends," Cassanda started, and Fahleon rolled his eyes at the glance she gave him. "Friends of Red Jenny. Who are they? What are they?"

"People like me. People, people," she emphasized. "We talk to each other, help each other."

"Spies," Cassandra clarified, and the girl lifted a shoulder.

"Suppose so. But not like the kind that goes around cutting necks. We steal breeches!" She laughed, a cackle, and voices - shouts and orders - sounded again within the small courtyard. She ducked under the raised garden beds and grinned up at them. "The name's Sera, glowy. That's cover. Get 'round it. Someone tipped me their equipment shed."

It was, unfortunately, the most truthful information to reach Fahleon's ears. Sera at least had the decency to mock him to his face - more than the Chantry and their templars combined. He still found it tiring. He lined a shot up, slow, and let out a breath when his aimed an arrow at the joining of the oncoming reinforcement's thighs. 

"Why didn't you take their weapons?" Cassandra shouted from the front where she parried a blade. A following thrust through the guard's studded jerkin and she pried the man off her sword with a delicate kick of her foot against his naked thigh. 

"Because no breeches," Sera snickered between her shots. Her arrows flew effortlessly, aimlessly, and Fahleon shook his head as he lined up his own shaft. The fletching against his skin made his cheek itch, but he stilled long enough to make it a worthwhile shot. Sera whistled with her fingers when it hit its mark. Fahleon's lip curled. He couldn't even enjoy the solid thump of his arrows hitting naked shem flesh. Fahleon worked his way through the rest of the guards, a frown set on his face, growing deeper when the elf pranced up to his side again. "You're a weird one," she said, and Fahleon didn't bother to ask which part of him was the weird part - his ears or the glowing hand. "I want to join you."

Fahleon shook his head.

"What he means is," Varric said, and Fahleon moved out of the way with a flinch when Varric placed a hand on his elbow, "that you have friends - people - that talk to each other and help each other. By providing information." Sera nodded. Varric linked his hands together in front of him. "Spies, essentially. And the Inquisition already has those."

"But not the Friends of Red Jenny," she explained, though it cleared up little. "You'll see, alright? And I'll see you at Haven, yeah?"

Fahleon turned his eyes away at her parting, lips twitching between a scowl and a sneer. Varric didn't try to reach for him again and Cassandra sighed before she began clearing the courtyard of bodies. Fahleon kicked at one, hard, and swore when his toe smacked against metal plate. He tore the armor off the corpse and shoved his hands in its pockets. His fingers curled around coins but the lightweight metal didn't feel comforting in his grasp. Varric yanked a bolt from its boot and squinted in the dark to examine the bent tip. 

"I know her kind," the dwarf started, and Fahleon rolled his eyes. He rose and dropped the coins in his pouch to count later. To get someone else to count them, later. "She means well, but-"

"I don't want to hear it." 

Varric raised his hands, empty and pleading. 

"Then let me be the bearer of bad news," Solas said. Fahelon drew in a slow breath. 

"There was more to the letter we were so gently given aside from this treasure hunt. There was an invitation to the White Spire - Val Royeaux's Circle - and the banquet the First Enchantress Madame de Fer." Solas tapped his staff against the bodies of the guards to nudge them out of the way. "Shall we be going?"

* * *

The Circle towered more than it spired above the gem of Orlais. It's point shadowed Val Royeaux from a distance, but the short ride from the gates to the Circle's bridge was no deterrent. Ribbons flowed just as freely from the windows and terraces as they had from the awnings in the bazaar, food in all its foreign shapes were stacked high in the tables set between the statues lining the foyer's walls where lights danced with the help of magic to the music of idle gossip. It quieted - the lights, the chatter, when the doors opened to him by a short man in a patterned suit of armor. Fahleon felt his ears ring in the silence and his breath trembled loudly between his teeth at the sword of mercy that hung down the banister. The mark in his hand made his fingers numb with all the magic in the air, and when he curled them the mark popped. 

Varric nudged him from behind and Fahleon bit back a pained hiss. He hunched his shoulders under the weight of the gazes that lingered and he glared at the mages that neared too close. There were no templar that he could see, but he hadn't seen them in the forests, either, before they'd kicked the wheels off the aravals and slaughtered the halla. 

"A pretentious usurper! We know what your Inquisition truly is," one mage muttered an insult under his breath and announced it, louder, when the Grand Enchantress herself decided to make appearance. His mouth was frozen shut the moment the last word fell from his lips, then his neck, his shoulders, his knees. Fahleon tapped the layer of ice encasing the noble and raised a brow when ice chipped under his nail. 

"My dear Marquis. How unkind of you to use such language in my house to my guests," a voice sighed in a tone not nearly so delicate as the figure that glided down the stairs. Her dress flowed behind her like the waves across a pond too murky to see what was hidden just below the water. "You know such rudeness is distasteful. What am I going to do with you, my dear?"

Fahleon flicked his eyes away from the noble to give the First Enchantress a similar, flat look, and the faint lift of her lips said more for her than any words she'd already uttered. The other mages heard the message loud and clear, and the scurried from the lobby to the safety of the smaller rooms beyond it. He felt relieved without all the attention, but not impressed. 

"My Lord - you're the wounded party in this unfortunate affair. What would you have me do with this foolish, foolish man?" Fahleon shrugged and, with a curl of her fingers, the ice cracked with a series of snaps and pops. The man inside screamed, no louder than a hum, until it ended in a final, solid crack. Fahleon stepped away from the frozen bits that scattered across the marbled flooring. "Come," the mage said, with another roll of her wrist. "Let's talk while this gets cleaned up." Hands folded delicately in front of her, she stepped lightly around the puddles forming on the floor. Fahleon followed her, more at ease where he could watch her from behind, and his fingers twitched with every pulse from the mark. He'd know if she used any spell against him, at least. 

"Allow me to finally introduce myself," she said, when they rounded a corner to an empty little alcove. Fahleon folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall closest to the hall. His eyes moved to door at the far end of the corridor and back to the mage when she laughed. Relaxed, she'd cocked a hip to perch herself on the windowsill and had a hand over the smile her mouth was shaping into. "I am Vivenne - First Enchantress of Montsimmard and Enchantress to the Imperial Court - both of which are in dire need of reshaping. After the mage rebellion and the following death of Divine Justinia, the Chantry is in shambles." She let out a gentle sigh and glanced out the window. The land spread out beyond it looked untouched by the same fires and refugee camps that dotted Fereldan's landscape. "I believe only the Inquisition might have the ability to restore the sanity and order to our frightened people, and as the leader of the last loyal mages in Thedas, I feel it only right that I lend my assistance in this cause of yours."

Fahleon narrowed his eyes. "There's no cause to fix the Chantry."

The First Enchantress gave her polite hand over her mouth laugh again and a shudder ran down his spine. "Of course it isn't yours. That's why I wanted to speak with you. And we'll speak further in your encampment in Haven. But, first, a drink to celebrate?"

Fahleon stepped away from the hand she held out to guide him back to the foyer. There was another flash of teeth from behind her hand and Fahleon decided he'd need two drinks - possibly a third.


	13. Chapter 13

"What did our new acquaintance want to talk about?" 

Fahleon looked over the rim of his glass to glance at Varric. Through the amber drink the dwarf's face looked more distorted than the crooked nose and the small scar on his cheek made it out to be. Fahleon downed the liquor and grit his teeth against the burn before letting out a breath that was more fire than air. Varric's face still looked sideways and he snorted out a laugh. "Mages."

The dwarf took a more dainty sip from his own drink - clear and water-downed. All water, most like, from the way Varric didn't twitch at all. The dwarf didn't know what he was missing. Or, wasn't missing. Fahleon hadn't been able to hear the buzz of gossip and rumors over the ringing between his ears and the glances sent his way slipped past his blurred eyes. It was no Dalish drink, but it went down all the same. "Of course she did. Care to elaborate on the juicy details?"

"No." Across the room the nobles began to twist and turn, and not in the confusing, dizzying patterns of the dances they sometimes did. Their hands fluttered to their faces but not to hide blushes or whisper more secrets - there was a nervousness to it, an unease. Fahleon stiffened as the crowd parted, and he reached for another glass when Cassandra shoved her way through the gap. Varric made a grab for his elbow that he not so nimbly avoided, knocking the drink he'd reach for over. He grabbed the one behind it, instead. 

"Where is Solas? We need to go," she said, demanded, sang for all he cared. His head had been free of magic theory and the differences between the Dalish and real elves for nearly an hour. Cassandra was asking the wrong person to know of his whereabouts. If Solas found it more comfortable to live in a tower surrounded by the shems he seemed to prefer over other elves, Fahleon wouldn't waste the effort in convincing him to come back. Fahleon knocked his third drink back and he clenched his teeth against the taste. Talk of Solas made it go down even more bitter. Cassandra made a low sound in her throat when he slammed the glass back onto the table alongside the others. There was a handful of small, shaped meats on the golden plate just next to them, and he shoved one into his mouth. The rest, along with the plate, went into one of the pouches tied to his belt.

The Orlesians wouldn't miss it. As if he cared. About Orlesians. Or what Cassandra thought of him. 

"You made sure to check the library before asking us, Seeker?" Varric asked. Cassandra scoffed in answer, never taking her eyes off the nobles still huddled in their groups. The sense of unease still hung between them and the talk whispered into ears had gone from sharp smiles to twitching frowns. Fahleon bit into a cracker topped with salted fish and licked the crumbs from his finger. He went for the knife, next, used to spread some sort of jelly he'd been too afraid to try atop it, and held it hidden within his fist, while his eyes followed the nervous gazes of the mages. 

At the entrance, not so well hidden by the banners and floral arrangements that hung around it, stood Solas and another elf. She had small, sharp ears and sharper eyes, and if she had as sharp a point of view as Solas, Fahleon wanted nothing to do with her. One elf that cozied up to shems was enough - two, after the girl in the courtyard was ridiculous. A third, and he was going to jump from the roof of the Circle. 

She looked as happy to meet him as he did. Her mouth was a thin, tight line, and her shoulders, adorned with a mantle of heavy, dark fur, were straight and rigid. She stopped in front of him, and without even looking at the table of food. A shame. 

"If I might borrow a moment of your time...outside," she said. 

She turned quickly to leave back the way she came. Fahleon's grip on the butter knife didn't loosen until she'd turned the corner, Solas trailing after her. He slipped it into another pouch and staggered after, Varric occasionally nudging him away from the approaching wall before he stumbled into it. His tongue felt numb in his mouth and he waited for Cassandra to say something. 

"You wished to...speak, Grand Enchanter Fiona?" Cassandra asked. Her eyes flicked to Solas but he merely lifted a shoulder, but there was no surprise to the action. 

"I did. I do," the enchanter answered. "About all of the templars...I heard of their gathering and I wanted to see the fabled Herald of Andraste with my own eyes." Fahleon snapped his attention back to her at the title and steadied himself against Varric's side when he wobbled as he spread out his arms. There he was, for the seeing. He flashed her a grin, all teeth, and he barked out a laugh when the skin around the enchanter's eyes tightened as he jaw clenched. "I wish to offer my aid in their stead. If it is help with the Breach that you seek, perhaps my people are the wiser choice."

"Your people," Fahleon muttered, sharp under his breath. Mages, not elves. Elves weren't people unless they had magic, lived hundreds of years ago, or had a glowing scar on the palm of their hands. He was sick of it. And to his stomach. He glanced at Cassandra.

She cleared her throat. "I do want to ask...you weren't at the Conclave, were you? You were supposed to be, and yet somehow you avoided death."

"As did the Lord Seeker, if you recall," Fiona answered, none too lightly. Cassandra frowned. "Both of us sent negotiators in our stead, should the Conclave prove to be a trap. In the end, I will not feel remorse to be glad that I did so, but I will not suffer another's opinions on the matter. I lost many of my own dear friends that day, as did we all. I only seek to do what they would, in their stead. It disgusts me to think that the templars will get away with their role in all of this. I'm hoping you won't let them."

"Then why speak to us now? Why not earlier?" Solas asked. Suspiciously. He'd spoken with the Grand Enchanter earlier, before she'd come to Fahleon, and he wondered just what they'd discussed. It couldn't have been the finger food or the poor choice in music.

"The Chantry has seen what you are and I've seen what the Chantry is. My actions are my own in regards to what's left of it. Consider this an invitation to Redcliffe - to come meet with me and with the mages. An alliance, I hope, could help the both of us. I look forward to seeing you there. In the meantime," Fiona said, and Fahleon narrowed his eyes to catch the faint slip of a smile that crossed her face, "I believe the Circle's cellars have not yet run dry."

Fahleon scowled through his flush, and he bit his tongue when Varric slapped a hand against his back. Fahleon spat. If it was a challenge, he'd take it. Fuck the templars and the mages. Fuck the Breach and all it's Rifts. He wanted to go home.

"What should we do, Smiles?" the dwarf asked, and Fahleon didn't believe he'd asked seriously - not with the grin on his face. "Did you need any more?" Fahleon sneered. "I mean about all the magic shit."

"Eat a nug."

"Oh, I've done that. Tastes better than whatever you've been swallowing down."

Cassandra pinched the bridge of her nose. "Let's make it back to Skyhold before we discuss anything."

 

Cullen was pacing outside the gates around Haven when Fahleon slid gracelessly from the horses. A layer of snow had settled around the Commander's furred shoulders, and he brushed them off with a heavy roll of his arms as they approached. There were layers and layers of parchment clenched in his fist and a tight frown on his face - and Fahleon shoved past him and shouldered his way into camp. His head pounded from the lack of discussion between Cassandra and Solas as they bickered over what Fiona meant by her invitation, and the bottle of liquor he'd swiped from the Circle's tables as they retreated hadn't helped enough to dull it. His thighs ached something else after the ride, and Fahleon dreamed of a soft bed to sit on and never get up from. 

Footsteps crunched on the icy paths after him. Fahleon hunched his shoulders.

"We heard what happened," Cullen said, and Fahleon tucked his chin in low against his chest. He didn't need a recap on the situation he'd had to bear. He headed for his cabin with steps as wide as he could make them, but Cullen was taller and quickly outpaced him to cut him off and force his path towards the Chantry. Fahleon made sure to step on the Commander's boots. Whether he felt it through the armor or not, it made Fahleon feel better just for the inconvenience it caused. "Leliana's agents in the city watched over the...proceedings. As much as they were. It was a shame that the templars abandoned their senses as well as the capital."

"A damn shame," Fahleon spat. He stamped the snow off his shoes and shouldered his way inside the church. 

"But now we know the extent of the Chantry's threats." Cassandra waited for them just inside the doors. She was down to her traveling leathers and wrapped in a thick mantle of fur to keep off the chill. Her crossed arms made her shoulders thick and round and bearlike. Fahleon skirted around her as she came up on his other side. 

"Yes, and we now have the openings we need to approach either the templars or the mages," Josephine said with a tap of her quill against the tablet still in her hands. She opened the door to small room at the end of the Chantry, behind the statue. 

"Do we? The Lord Seeker is not the man I remember."

"I have to agree." Inside, Leliana waited. There was a screech, sharp and shrill, as she stood, and Ada flapped her wings from her perch on the back of the chair Leliana rose from. Fahleon lifted a hand and Cullen ducked with a grunt as the bird glided over to wrap her talons around his knuckles. He let her pluck at his braid for a moment before quieting her chirps with a hand over her eyes. Her weight on his arm steadied him in the small room full of shems. "My reports have been very...odd."

"Odd how?"

"We can look into it," Cullen dismissed with a sweep of his arm across the table. Cassandra snorted and reached for a paper he'd disturbed. She skimmed it before flipping it over. 

"Do we have the time for that?" Leliana asked. 

"I have to agree with Leliana," Josephine said. "There is little time to be wasting arguing while the margin for any of these meetings continues to close. We could simply have the Herald head to Redcliffe to meet with the mages-"

"The mages?" Cullen shook his head. "The mages could be ten times worse than the Breach itself!"

"You think the templars are any better?" Leliana hid a smile behind a fist pressed to her lips, pretending to think. 

"At least we know what they're capable of." Fahleon's lip curled when Cullen turned to him. Ada screeched. "What do you think?"

Fahleon sneered. He thought he'd been given the power to make choices with or without their approval. He thought Cullen had a lot of confidence in himself, asking a Dalish to put their trust in templars - in soldiers that trampled their camps and set fire to their tents to flush the mages out, to capture them and steal them away from their families and brainwash them like all the other flat ears. Fahleon thought he'd like to slam an arrow down the Commander's throat, just for suggesting it. This was greater than any demon spitting hole in the sky. The Breach, if left alone, would spread to the Free Marches. If it hadn't already affected the Dalish in Orlais, in it would soon, and other clans as well. That was what he stayed for. 

If the mages, on one end, made the Breach ten times worse, they could make it ten times better. 

"We head to Redcliffe," Fahleon growled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks pretty much the introduction to Fahleon's story, and the edited version of what I had done at the end of NaNo. I'll be continuing Fahleon's story throughout April, so please bear with me through this hiatus. There'll be a few canon divergences coming up that won't change the actual plot of Inquisition, but does bring out some better characterization for Fahleon. I'll be putting up notices on the chapters where it happens.
> 
> Thank you for coming so far with me already!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back! There's a fresh new batch of chapters ready and waiting, and I thank all of you who've been patient for waiting! There's a little bit of canon divergence within the next few that don't effect the overall plot, but hold tight nonetheless.

"The mages, huh?"

Fahleon sighed as he looked down the line of the shaft of the arrow he was shaping for any deformities. It was an unfortunate sight to see Varric at the end of it, but he had wondered when the dwarf would speak up. Their shared silence wasn't comfortable, not when Fahleon knew there was one reason for another for Varric to join him in whittling. He endured it with a growing headache for he wouldn't be getting much quiet in the coming days. A pity it didn't last any longer. Fahleon let the newest arrow drop into his lap as he leaned back, supported by his hands resting behind him in the dirt of Haven's outer wall. He toyed with the misshapen duck feathers he'd tossed out, useless for fletching. Perfect for distracting his hands from reching forward to swat at the smirk on the dwarf's face. 

"I thought you had enough of magic."

Fahleon grunted, low, and dug his hands a little deeper into the dirt and felt mud suck at his fingers, cold and soft against the callouses. It didn't feel so bad on the rough edges of the mark splitting his palm in too, either. There wasn't much that relieved the burning itch other other than distancing himself from magic. Difficult, now that word of the Inquisition's next move had gone around and their numbers - such as they word - began preparing for the meeting at Redcliffe. Most of the people were nothing more but common shems, scared without the sturdy roof of the Chantry over their heads to tell them what to do and what to believe. They turned to the Inquisition to do that for them and they were set was washerwoman, healers, cooks. The few that knew how to fight, like the templars who had thrown off their collars to join Cullen's command, and the even fewer mages, more terrified of what waited for them in the Hinterlands than the stigma they earned in Haven, were the real cause. Their magic tugged at the mark until Fahleon thought his skin would tear and blister. Beyond that, the Breach was still cracked wide open, and whether or not it was spitting demons, it was still raining down it's own sort of magic. 

So, no, he hadn't had enough of mages. He had enough of his hand wanting to kill him. That wasn't story material, nothing Varric would want to hear. At least, the lack of anger was. The part where his hand had its own mind be, but it hadn't gotten to that point. Not yet, at least.

The Breach was still blissfully free of demon-spit. So long as it stayed that way, he had the time to revel in all of Haven's magic use, from the brief tingle of Solas lighting a candle in the Chantry's small library to the hot, deep pain of the cook fire bursting to life under the wave of a halfling's hand. Fahleon clawed at the dirt with a grimace and sent his glare her way. She had taken up a spot not far from where he and Varric sat. Conviently within hearing distance. 

Fair. Fahleon didn't trust her either, but he at least had the courage to show it. She made a point of not looking at him, only glaring at him until he caught her. She turned away and busied herself with someone else on the other side of the pot. 

Varric had taken up a cloth and rubbed down his fresh bolts as he waited. 

Fahleon resented his excessive patience. 

"Had enough of templars, too," he finally answered. He hoped it sated his curiosity so they go back to their awkward, tense silence.

"Like a lesser of two evils sort of thing?" Of course not. His irritability only increased as he watched Raya drop something meaty into her pot. It smelled spicy and thick, and the scent drew Ada away from him and over to a table near the simmering pot. Raya lifted her chin and Fahleon bit down on a growl. It was wasted breath on someone like her. "I know a little something about that myself."

Creators have mercy on him.

Varric tied his fletching tightly around the end of his bolt as he hummed some foreign song under his breath. It was uneven and out of pitch with the way his lips kept twitching into a smile. Fahleon didn't find it as funny. The topic of magic of magic and templars - was in poor taste if Varric meant to get him to open up to him. 

Mud squished between his fingers to paint his knuckles, and Fahleon relaxed his grip only when he felt his teeth ache as he grinded them. "Something like that."

Magic was revered among the Dalish. Mages were uncommon, enough that the few that were born were quickly swept up by the Keepers to be raised alongside what little of the history they knew in the hopes it could be restored just a little more - or, at the very least, preserved for one generation more. Magic was to be used to help, to discover, to protect and to compare it to the templars? Who tore through their forests and scared their animals in order to stomp through their camps to tear down aravals and kill the elves that lived in them. The lucky ones were chained and dragged away to their towers. Those less so were left in the ruins. If using magic was a lesser evil than murder, he'd stand by the consequences every night. So long as he never had to see one more templar again.

"I know a little something about that myself, but that's a story for another time" Varric said, without the grin. Fahleon snorted. At least the dwarf had finally reattained his uncanny ability to read the mood. Fahleon sat upright and wiped the mud from his hands on his tunic. Varric made a face and rubbed his own hands together before clapping them together and pushing himself to his feet. He scooped up his finished bolts and slid them into his quiver. Fahleon could only hold his breath in the hopes he'd get some time that day to himself. "It looks like company has found us."

Palas.

With a groan, Fahleon climbed to his own feet to meet Cassandra as she rode up to them on horseback. Another two of the beasts lumbered behind her. Solas already sat on one of them, and Fahleon eyed the only other empty saddle. The horse grazed, elegant as any halla, if not three times its size and with teeth to match. He crossed his arms and sent a pointed look Cassandra's way. She almost smiled, hiding the twitch of her mouth with a brief dip of her head in greeting.

"We've received news from Redcliffe, where the rebel mages have been amassing. Fiona has been been there some time awaiting our response and we can find her at an inn by the name of the Gull and Lantern just within the city's walls." Cassandra trailed off and her expression grew uneasy. "It is likely she still intends to offer the Inquisition aid but her message was...odd."

Fahleon frowned. "Odd how?"

"Her message makes it seem like our coming was unexpected," Solas answered. He sounded more curious than concerned as he looked towards the trees and the path between them that led down to the Hinterlands. 

Cassandra grunted out an agreement. "We still don't know what she means, whether she is genuinely surprised we sought help from her rather than the templars, or if something else entirely is at play. For not, it is best still to leave now and make haste for Redcliffe and make arrangements."

Fahleon picked up the rest of his arrows with a grumble before he whistled to Ada with a sharp sound and the kite took off from her perch on the post by the cook fire. Soup or tea or something sloshed as she flew away, and Fahleon lifted an arm for her and leaned to catch her weight. It was a reassuring pressure on his shoulder that made the halfling's angry glare dull. She had almost perfected Cassandra's look. 

"Do you think this has someone to do with the Conclave?" Varric asked, and Fahleon's ear twitched. He scooped up the remaining supplies and stored them in one of the horse's saddle bags for later use before pulling himself up. He was getting better at it every time - as much as he hated to admit ti - but his legs wouldn't grow any longer. Not even with as much kicking as he did at the air to balance himself. If left him to wiggle, uncomfortably, into the saddle. Face red, he let Cassandra heft most of Varric's weight to set him in front. 

"It does not matter what I think. Only what I see - and what I do after." Whatever answer Varric expected hadn't been that, and he kept his mouth shit. "Come, we will ride for the Hinterlands now and Leliana will join us along with Josephine at a later time to settle our agreements, whatever they might be."

"And what will you be doing, Seeker?" 

She snorted. "I will be watching for trouble, from both the mages and you." Varric, the grin back on his face, placed a hand over his heart. Fahleon wanted to get off the horse, even if it meant falling on his head. Hopefully he fell on his head. "You are lucky I even considered taking you with is, dwarf. There is a degree of diplomacy that must be shown. But...I also have my concerns there is something strange with our soon to be allied that must be watched for. If anything is to happen-"

"Don't you worry your pretty head off. Bianca knows how to behave."

She eyed him before lifting her chin and Fahleon felt his back grow hot under her stare. "The same goes for you, of course."

Fahleon lifted his hands, empty and bare, save for the mark that scored his skin. He had no tricks up his sleeves, at least not yet, but the mark had its own magic and It flashed a color similar to the Breach as they passed through the rest of the camp. Cassandra's frustration melted into something that looked too much like pity, and Fahleon nudged his horse into a slow trot to escape it. If Cassandra wanted to pity him, she wouldn't have thrown him into a cell the moment she found him passed out in the snow. She wouldn't have forced him to stay in Haven and work under her commands. That pained him more than the thought of its magic killing him. 

With the rifts spread throughout Orlais, there was now telling whether their numbers would interact with the Breach a second time and restart its growth. If it did...Fahleon didn't think he'd want Solas to stop it a second time. Which meant the first time had to count. If he couldn't save everyone, the Dalish most of all, there was no one that could. He'd need the mages, then, whether he liked it or not. Whether someone else said so or not. Not that were was no going back, not after he pressed into the familiar forests of the Frostbacks. 

It was nearly night by the time the trees turned to shrubs and the path widened into the main road of Redcliffe's market route. The sunset left enough light to throw the shadow of the town's notorious windmill across the even more notorious cliffs, red and towering over the city from which it got its name. It had stood once - the windmill - tall and mighty to overlook the expansive waters of Lake Calenhad and the only Fereldan Circle that rose from its depths like a rotten tooth. Ever since the Blight, the windmill was its own shadow, and the fogs across the lake were deep. Fahleon was grateful for the cover as he hunched forward in the saddle, fists tight around the reigns, hoping to keep himself hidden from the throng of Redcliffe's commoners. 

The Gull and Lantern inn wasn't far from the cliffs, luckily. It used the steep, flat plane of the stone as a wall to build against. The bar was on the ground while the inn itself stacked its rooms unevenly above, scaffolding and rickety looking stairs criss-crossed between them. The sign had a new layer of paint over it.

"Welcome, agents of the Inquisition," a robed mage greeted as she opened the door for them. 

Cassandra entered first, a hand on the pommel of her sword and a stern frown on her face. Varric dipped his head to her, but his own expression wavered between an uneasy smile and a watery scowl. Fahleon pushed past them all. The only mage that mattered was the Grand Enchanter, and she sat alone at a large table in the front corner of the room. A handful of younger mages fluttered around her, nervous and restless, but their gazes stuck to the floor and their mouths remained firmly shut. 

As if they were afraid. The scent of their sweat left a bad taste in his mouth and the excessive magic leaking from their restlessness left him in an even worse attitude.

The mage gestured for them to enter and Fahleon gave her a wide berth as he marched to to the table. Anger - no, that wasn't right. Nothing boiled under his skin, but something made his stomach knot, set his skin crawling. The Grand Enchanter had promised so much potential for them, for him and the Inquisition, as an aid, an ally, an elf. The determination in her eyes was gone when she turned to face them, and in its place was a far way, empty look. He was...disappointed. Nervous. It made his face hot. If he couldn't re-convince the mages to join them, what would they do instead? Would he have to turn in the templars in the end? Face the Breach alone?

Fiona rode to her feet and gave him a curt nod of her head. She folded her hands in front of her.

"I heard word of your coming. What brings you to Redcliffe?"

Fahleon narrowed his eyes. He wouldn't turn tail and beg before the templars. He'd make the thing that had twisted the arms of the mages bleed out before he did that. "You know why."

Behind him, Fahleon heard Cassandra sigh. "You came to Val Royeaux to invite us to meet you here, Grand Enchanter." Fahleon watched Fiona's expression change from open interest to confusion and finally to unease. Her lips settled into thin lin and her brow furrowed, her eyes darting away for a brief second. Fahleon set his jaw.

"I am afraid you must be mistaken. I have not been to Val Royeaux since before the Conclave."

He waited for Cassandra to say something else helpful. Solas spoke up, instead.

"I suppose a kind of magic could be at work here," he mumbled to the floor in thought. "How and for what reason, I could not even begin to guess. But it isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility. There has already been one such strange occurrence of impossible magic, as we all know." 

Fahleon's fingers curled over the mark. 

Fiona shook her head. "I must apologize once again. Whoever - or whatever - is was that brought you here, the situation has changed." Fahleon dug his fingers in harder into his palm s the mark burned. The magic building within the inn gathered denser, filling in at the the furthest corners, and pushed hard on the edges of the wound to sting his hand all the way down to his fingertips. He grit his teeth. "The free mages have pledged themselves the to service of the Tevinter Imperium."

Fahleon snarled, pain laced tightly with anger, and grabbed at his wrist. At the mages, at Tevinter, at the hot, piercing pain racing up to his elbow. All of the mages in the room reacted to the Grand Enchanter's admittance at once, all their confusion, nervousness, pulsed, and within them, even more powerfull than the Enchanter, made his skin crawl in their direction. 

"I understand you are afraid," he heard Solas say, disappointed, through the ring in his ears, "but you deserve better than slavery to Tevinter."

"As one indentured to a magister, I am no longer in the position to negotiate with you." Fahleon wanted to shake her.

"I will have that pleasure," a man said, entering the room from the stairs that led to the inn above. "My apologies for not greeting you earlier. My name is Gereon Alexius." The powerful mage. The magister. The bastard. Fahleon wanted to shake him. Or slap him. His hand was too busy sparking for either.

Fahleon glared at Fiona. "We'll talk later," he growled, and she dipped her head again in parting before removing herself from the bar. The magister took her place and waved a hand to offer him a seat. Fahleon remained standing. He didn't expect to be here long enough to sit. The magister's smile widened. 

"You must be the survivor from the Fade, then? Interesing."

No mention of Andraste alongside him, calling him the Herald. Was it a slight? A favor? Old age? Fahleon snorted. Interesting indeed. If he didn't look it with the sweat sticking the uneven hairs loose from his braid to his forehead and the shaking fingers clutching at his arm, throat bobbing as he barely held back a snarl, the magister looked like an odd museum piece. All his years of living off the backs of the elves he held in his oppressive grip had been difficult on him, it seemed. It cut deep lines around his eyes and below his mouth. How he must have toiled, poking and prodding at the history of the Dalish to further his own fortune, his own knowledge, to earn them. 

Fahleon couldn't hold back his anger and he felt Cassandra step closer behind him as he growled. She would have her sword at his spine before he had the time to bare his teeth, let along snap them at him. That was, if she didn't already have her hand at the ready. Screw her diplomacy - it would be worth it.

"I need the mages."

"Right to business?" The magister laughed and Fahleon's eyes hardened further. Alexius waved his glare away with an easy roll of his wrist. "You need them to help close the Breach, correct? It will be no easy task - certainly not a feat just anyone could attempt. Ambitious, I give you that." Alexius' smile curled, and Fahleon winced when the mark pop audibly. He blinked hard to chase away the bead of sweat that stung at his eye. "There would have to be-"

Fahleon thought a rift would pop into the air in front of him. The mark hissed and it burned, hotter than before. Had they run out of time? Had the Breach opened itself up again? Any more magic in the room and if there wasn't a new round of demons in his face, there would be soon. He glared at the magister, looking for something, anything, and found not the slightest sign of urgency or concern along the lines crossing Alexius' face. Fahleon gasped out a curse. Solas ad said it was possible for some sort of magic to be involved in causing the Grand Enchanter's confusion, but there was no confusion in who had cause it. Not know.

Fahleon startled when Solas reached forward and placed his hand atop of Fahleon's own. It was blessedly cold, and Fahleon sagged forward as the mark's burn lessened. It cooled into something tolerable at the whisper of a spell.

Alexius clicked his tongue. "I have the feeling you aren't in the best of spirits for such a discussion, and I have own matters to tend to - with the southern mages of course. Perhaps we can continue this conversation when you're feeling better?" He was rising before Fahleon had the time to demand him to sit back down, to shake the hold he had on the mages free, but the pressure at his back from Cassandra's presence was missing and even Varric had moved towards the door. Only Solas remained, his hand still over the mark. Fahleon tore his hand away. 

"I cannot get it out of my head that something is indeed wrong here, but I can't tell you what. Or where." Solas whispered, and Fahleon scowled. As if he couldn't tell for himself. "I beg of you, Herald, to help the mages in a way that I could not."

Alexius called for Fiona, and she, with no choice but to follow, gave them all one last, sad look before ducking through the door to return to the inn above. With her exit, followed by the mages, the magic disperesed throughout the Gull and Lantern, and the mark fizzled out with the last of them. Fahleon rubbed at the blisters that dotted his palm.

Varric gave him a worried look. "You still up for all this magic shit?"


	15. Chapter 15

Fahleon crushed the letter with his fist and threw it to the table. It bounced across the map sprawled flat on the table and dropped to the floor. He watched, angry, as Josephine picked it up with a soft sign and smoothed out the edges. He wished, for the first time he could think of, that he had the talent for reading. At the very least he could puzzle out the meaning and the scribbles and dots scattered about on the colored sketch of Thedas. The Inquisition had made its unstable home in Haven, marked by the handful of carved eyeball shapes grouped together in the bottom corner. One was moved to the center - Redcliffe, likely. Something looking like a tower stood next to it, and Fahleon assumed it was meant for the mages. The captured mages. Of which the magister had sent word about, as promised. Word that Fahleon could only listen to, Alexius' his threat read by another. How embarrassing, to not be able to face it himself. Fahleon growled and knocked over the tower with the back of its hand. One of its crenelations chipped.

There would be no negotiations. The mages were prisoners in all but name now. Out of power and out of reach. That left few options left for him - for the Inquisition - but it would not be the templars. And if Cullen suggested turning around to look for them one more time, Fahleon was going to throw the little tower in his face. He hoped he choked on it. Or poked out an eye. He'd cross all of the Hinterlands again, all of Thedas, in search for help from anyone but the templars. There was the Avaar if he was truly desperate, or other Dalish clans if they had the time to afford to look for them. They'd be hesitant, at first, to join with the shems, but Fahleon was sure he could convince them. 

There were other ways. He was supposed to be the miracle worker in th center of this mess - after all, the mark on his hand gave him the ability to pull miracles out of thin air just as easily as it pulled the plugs on the first. He frowned and rubbed at his wrist. The mark hadn't exploded with power ever since leaving Redcliffe. Solas hadn't known the cause or the reason for its overload, not that Fahleon gave him much information to go off on. He wouldn't speak in depth about the mark or its pain to the elf until after the Breach was sealed and get it removed. A warning was all he was able to provide, that it could happen again. All Fahleon needed was for it to go crazy, again, when he faced the Magister a second time. 

He shook his head. There wasn't time to look for another source of help, not if the mark would overload and the Breach could reopen. Meaning Fahleon had to take the mages that had been stolen out from under them. 

"We don't have the man power to take the castle," Cullen mused under his breath, and Fahleon tensed, hand already reaching for the tower. "Either we find another way in or we give up altogether and get-"

Fahleon snarled and hurled the piece at him. Cullened jerked back a step at the movement and he lifted an arm to block it. The tower bounced harmlessly off Cullen's bracers with a clank and tumbled to the floor. Cullen lowered his arm and frowned at him. Fahleon met it with a scowl. "No templars."

Cassandra glared at the both of them. Fahleon endured the heat and he snorted when Cullen rolled his shoulders, deflating. Fahleon's lip curled. "Redcliffe is under the commander of a magister. Whether or not the mages can help us, we cannot let this stand."

"I agree." Josephine nodded idly as she finished reading the note. She folded it gently into neat squares and placed it on the table. "This letter Alexius sent us asks only for the Herald - by name. It is an obvious trap, but one that we may be able to use to get in and help them."

"Do I have to repeat myself again?" Cullen tapped an armored finger against the map where Redcliffe was no longer marked. "Redcliffe castle is one of the most defensible fortresses in Fereldan. Possibly all of Theads. It has repelled hundreds of attack including the Blight! We've barely replenished our numbers and supplies from the first assault on the Breach. We don't need to lose more from a futile endeavor. I say-"

"Who said we had to attack?" Leliana crossed her arms. "Battle is not the option available to us. As Josephine said, Alexius is looking to meet only the Herald. We do not need to send an entire army." Cullen opened his mouth to argue again and Fahleon flipped the eye piece statue in his hand, prepared for a second shot. Leliana smiled. "I know of a secret passage into the castle that is used as an escape for the arl and his family. It is too narrow, but not so for a small number of agents." Her lips stretched wide. "The Herald included."

Cullen cursed under his breath. "It's too risky. If you were to go in there alone who's to say you wouldn't die? We would lose the only means we have of closing the Breach. I won't allow it."

"But the templars are fine working with an elf with a magic hand?" Fahleon snapped.

He flushed. "That's not-"

"It is," Cassandra said. "Seeking the templars for help holds as many risks as saving the mages, especially if they are as unpredictable as the Lord Seeker has become. It may even be too late to ask them for aid. If we can help the mages, in any way, and earn their trust, there is still a chance."

Fahleon nodded and turned back to the map. The letters and lines and colors could shape only the land, they couldn't give him the answers he was looking for. They blurred together, the lines crossing, the colors muddling together, and the words more confusing than the plan to free the mages. Not that he needed one. Alexius was the same monster the elders had told all the Dalish children in the stories. He wouldn't let anyone suffer under them if he could help it. There was nothing else to do but to go back to Redcliffe. He grit his teeth. 

He never thought he'd say the words himself.

"Tell the magister I'm coming."

* * *

Fahleon flinched at every sound echoed down Redcliffe's halls. Not even Ada's reassuring weight on his shoulder was enough to calm him. He started at every footstep and flinched at the flickering lamplight. He'd rather walk through the Deep Roads towards another Archdemon than stand before a magister of Tevinter. Anger made his lip curled. A magister. Of Tevinter. The same kind that stomped across the Dales with their boots soaked with the blood of elves which lived there to drag them away in chains. The same kind that enslaves and sacrificed others for their own power, turning their eyes from the destruction of the People to save themselves the guilt. If they even had enough heart to feel a shred of it in the first place. Fahleon was nothing but a bug to him, easily overlooked, easily swatted away. 

Fahleon pounded on the doors to the throne room with a heavy fist. Alexius wasn't much better. He was a disgusting, hideous, parasitic spider, waiting up on high in his web of lies and false smiles to string him up. Even with no escape, not every fly caught was eaten. Fahleon would struggle and kick and tear Alexius' plan to pieces, hopefully taking out a few legs with it.

The mages wouldn't be trapped for much longer. 

The chamber doors swung shut behind him with an empty boom. Ada shifted uneasily on his shoulder in the dim light and stale air. Fahleon didn't lift a hand to calm her or the talons she sunk deep through the leather wrappings of her perch and into his skin. The magister could face both of their fury. 

A man atop the stairs leading up to the throne bowed, briefly, the jewels and buttons decorating his coat shining in the light, before making a slow descent. Fahleon's scowl wavered every second that ticked by, and he hissed when Ada screeched into his ear. His nerves, bunched tight and raw, snapped, and he snarled. 

The chamberlain stopped several feet from the pair, and Fahleon took confidence in his unease. "Your weapons, Master Lavellan."

Master. The word hit him harder than any punch to the gut and took away his breath even faster. Half a dozen lesser servants spilled from the walls like ants to poke and grab at him while he reeled. He jerked, unsteadily, from their seeking hands when they pulled off his bow and snatched away his daggers along with the poisons he coated them with. Ada shrieked louder with every sudden twist until one bravely reached a hand out to grab one of her outstretched wings. The kite hissed and screamed and a second attempt earned the servant a deep and ugly cut down his cheek. It wouldn't scar nicely. 

Fahleon found his feet. "Don't touch her," he spat, more poison in his voice than any in the bottles the servants had taken from him.

The servant was pale under the dark blood streaming down one side of his face and getting paler. His plain, undecorated hood couldn't hide the stain of it or the shine of his wide, wild eyes. They darted to the chamberlain standing still far behind them. Maybe a step even further behind. The chamberlain nodded, swallowing. Fahleon took a step back when a second servant closed in from behind. He bared his teeth. 

"Don't. Touch. Her."

"We must take all precautions, my lord. Surely you understand."

Fahleon curled his lip. He understood - that the magister wanted to meet him, alone and unable to attack. Defenseless. He didn't move save for the twitch of a muscle in his neck when the servants shifted. They didn't make a third grab for Ada, and Fahleon released a shaky breath. He shouldered through the rest of them and paused before the chamberlain just long enough to stare into his eyes. The chamberlain's lip trembled as he glanced at the bird. Fahleon stormed past him, too. 

"Announce me."

The man tripped on his own feet in his haste to turn back up the stairs. "My lord magister!" He sounded out of breath as he neared the top and swept an arm out in invitation. "The agents of the Inquisition have arrived. May I present to you the Master Lavellan and his...pet." Fahleon grit his teeth hard enough he heard his jaw pop. The chamberlain flinched when Fahleon stopped at the landing before the throne besides him. 

Alexius lounged in an ornate chair filled with as much feathers in the pillows as the arms were with stones. The carving of an animal head that made up the back had been chopped off, and in its place was a metalworking in the shape of snakes entwined around a pair of horns. It shuddered and the throne creaked when Alexius rose from it with a laugh. 

"My friend! I'm pleased to see you again in better health - and so soon! I've been eagerly awaiting you for our negotiations." 

Fahleon's frown turned pained when Alexius neared and Fahleon's fingers curled over the mark as it sputtered and stung. The magister gave it only a passing glance, and Fahleon's eyes narrowed when something in his face changed. The mark burned hotter and Fahleon couldn't stop his gasp. 

"Will the mages have no input regarding our fate?" Fiona stood behind the throne, no longer hidden from few. There was a light in her eyes, bright and fierce and full of a power she hadn't possessed when they last met. Contempt. Hatred. Fahleon's grin was tight when he looked at her, and soon to fall with another pop from his hand. The Grand Enchanter smiled, and in the shadows it made her face twist into something monstrous.

"Fiona, my dear," Alexius chided, a verbal slap to both their cheeks that made Fahleon's face heat. "You would not have turned you and your followers over to my care if you did not already trust me with your lives. Why not do so now, to know what is best for you?"

Fahleon hunched his shoulders. "You left her with no choice. I do, now."

"Do you?" The magister lifted a brow and dropped his eyes to Fahleon's hand again. Fahleon shifted his weight and turned to keep it out of view. Alexius shook his head. "Very well, then. If this is what the Inquisition wants to do - but do remember your place here. The Inquisition needs the mages to close the Breach and I am the only one that has them. What do you, Herald of Andraste, have to offer in exchange for them?"

Fahleon met his stare for a moment. This was the moment that mattered. Walking into the trap, setting himself up, letting himself be talked down to by the magister...he reigned in his frustration for one second longer. 

"Nothing."

Alexiu's jaw worked before it opened with a laugh that shook his shoulders. "Nothing? Did you think to charm me into handing over the mages and letting your walk away just like that? My, you're more interesting than I first thought. If you'd amuse me a bit longer, just explain how you thought you accomplish that?"

Another second, then, of holding himself back. Fahleon clenched his fist tighter, and felt his fingers buzz where they pressed hard against the edges of the mark. Alexius folded his hands in front of him, waiting patiently for an answer he knew Fahleon couldn't provide. So long as he didn't know about Leliana's agents, he'd bare it. 

"You walk into my stronghold with your stolen mark - that which you know nothing about - and you think you're the one in control? You're nothing but a mistake." Fahleon shook. He thought the sound of metal was his own buckles knocking together until it grew louder, only by a fraction. His ears twitched at the softer noise of slippered feet sliding against stone and a soft sigh followed by another. He flicked his eyes to the magister. Alexius waved his hands about himself, face reddening, growing fevered. "It was the Elder One's moment. His Anchor. And you stole it! You are unworthy to even stand in his presence!"

Crazy. The Tevinter magister was crazy now. An unfortunately and deadly combination. Fahleon backed up a step, but Alexius faced him. He threw an arm out to him and Fahleon didn't dare to move without knowing what sort of spell could be on the end of it. Ada pressed close to his face, tensing, before taking off. He flinched, waiting for Alexius to throw an attack. The magister spat, instead. 

"He will become a God with or without it. He will make the world bow to mages, to the Venatori, once more. We will rule from the Boeric Ocean to the Frozen Seas!"

Alexiu's shout knocked Fahleon back a step. The power from the mark, the Anchor, forced him back another. He looked for Fiona, and he grimaced when he found her leaning against the throne, eyes half-lidded. She hadn't been angry when she entered. There was power in her stance, but not out of spite. Confidence. There was no concern with the magister's loss of reality. Of course. He must have done something to her mind. Controlled it or something even more dangerous with his blood magic. 

"Venatori! The Elder One demands this elf's life!"

Fahleon dropped to his kneels and rolled out of the way of the first spell flung at him. He snarled at the burst of pain from his hand, but there were no further attacks, no more shouts or sounds of fighting. Fahleon risked a look behind him and eased into a crouch at the sight of the servants limp on the ground like trash. Leliana's agents had made their way through the tunnels of the castel's walls and taken them out before Alexius could issue his orders. Fahleon's victorious grin never made it fully to his face. 

"You are a mistake," Alexius screamed. "I'll show it to you - even if I have to do it myself!" With another wave of his hand, Fiona marched slowly forward, graceful and cold. The closer she drew, the worse the Anchor hurt until Fahleon thought his arm would burst into flame. He clenched his teeth and tasted blood. Fiona's mouth split in a smile that showed off rows of inhuman teeth. 

"I won't just show you the world the Elder One will create. I'll be you, for it." Fahleon jerked back, away from her reaching arms, but her fingers dug into his shirt like claws and she shoved him, hard, to the floor, falling on top of him after. 

When he opened his eyes again, he blinked up at himself.


	16. Chapter 16

"Being you is so much more interesting than being the Grand Enchanter." Fahleon had never heard his voice so cold before. It made his mouth dry but he dared not to swallow, not when the hand around his neck tightened with every passing second. His hand. On his throat. His nails, blunt and uneven, digging into his skin. Fahleon dragged in a thin breath as his vision blurred. In the grey edges of his sight, the face staring down at him was almost different. The smile was too wide, teeth too pointed. 

"You're a demon," he rasped. 

"Well aren't you smart." The demon let go of him and its wide grin and all the cruelty it held came into sharp contrast with Fahleon's next inhale. He shoved himself away, out of reach, before climbing to his feet. His legs gave out and he dropped to one kneee. The demon laughed. "But still weak. Compared to the mage...." Fahleon curled his lips but the demon was gone. 

"It's little matter, now," it continued, suddenly behind him, and Fahleon whipped his head around to face it. He flinched back as it reached a hand out towards him, skin crawling where Fahleon felt it trail a finger along his shoulders. "There's another power at hand. The Inquisition, of course. Do you know what it could become? It's potential. Of course you do." He held himself still as the demon cupped its hand around the back of his neck, fingers scratching lightly through his hair. He breathed hard through his nose. "You'll show me, won't you? You and all of your...anger, hm?"

Fahleon jerked away and the demon let him go with a chuckle. Its eyes shone with the light of the Fade, growing brighter until it blinded him, and Fahleon heard the boom of an explosion pound through him. The Conclave.

Debris rained down from the sky like the snow that fell in the cold, windy mountains of the Frostbacks. Ash burned his cheeks where the snow hadn't numbed them, and Fahleon rubbed warmth into his face. His skin felt wet and he found his fingers colored red from a deep cut on his head. Something screamed in the distance, louder than the high ringing in his ears, and he lifted his chin. Ada's winged shape, nothing more than a small dot against the grey clouds above, circled high overhead. She veered off and Fahleon tripped in the snowdrifts as he made to follow after her. Fahleon shook his foot free and frowned when the charred remains of a body, half buried already, held on tight to his leg. He yanked himself free.

Ahead was the Temple of Sacred Ashes, collapsed, burning, broken. The same as the last time he'd seen in it. And, Fahleon thought, the inside would be much the same. He'd find nothing but empty halls, and even less answers than the first time he was sent to search the temple. This was the Fade, made up of his thoughts and memories, but they were not his to control this time. It was better to keep moving than wait for the demon controlling the scene to attack him again.

It smelled of iron, like old blood and rusted chains. Sour, like the sweat of a wet and dirty, well-guarded Dalish elf. Fahleon narrowed his eyes at the shadows thrown up on the walls of the dungeon by the sputtering torchlight. He turned even before the sound of a door swinging shut echoed in the silence. 

"Do you dare to deny your crimes?" Cassandra had snarled as she marched to his dungeon door in the prison dug beneath Haven. She did so, again, in the mockery played out before his eyes. The four guards that stood watch, hands always ready on their sheathed swords, bared them now and pointed them at the elf kneeling in the center of them. A hand smacked at his cheek. Fahleon twitched. He remembered the force of it, the hate in Cassandra's eyes. The look she still had, sometimes, when she looked at him. They'd never find common ground between them, but if this was the demon's attempt to make him feel estranged from her, from the Inquisition...it would have to try harder. 

"It was the last chance to make peace between the mages and templars! And that chance is gone!" Cassandra's own sword was drawn and swinging. She roared as she stabbed him, her blade sliding easily between his ribs, and Fahleon pressed a hand to his side at the phantom pain. He started when he felt blood wet his fingers and soak into his shirt. Her mistrust of him, the lack of fear around him, it hadn't bothered him. He'd be a hypocrite if he had, but he'd never believed Cassandra would truly stab him. 

It was only a dream, Fahleon snapped at himself. He wrapped his hands around the blade wedged inside his side. His blood made his slippery and he gripped it harder with a snarl. A nightmare. They only hurt in the moment. 

He bit down hard on his tongue as he drew the sword out in one, quick pull. It dropped to the floor in a clatter and he kicked it away with another. It echoed through th dungeon, and laughter followed the cold ring of metal. 

"There's more that want you dead." Fahleon glared at his own body on the floor. Limp muscles twitched and blood-stained hands pushed it up until it sat, facing him. The demon's light was back in its eyes. "The Elder One, most of all. When I'm done here, he'll kill you and ascend - and then I will be you. Just as I was the Grand Enchanter."

He'd heard that name before. The Elder One. One more madman, frightened by another power, thinking it was his right to kill the rising Herald. As if there weren't enough already. "You can try." 

The demon laughed, and its hollow, cold voice rose into a high pitched snicker. Cassandra moved, her eyes finally lifting from the floor where she'd been standing, still and silent. Her shoulders were squared, now, eyes hard, mouth twisted into a smirk. "Don't be so hasty to die," she said. "I have all the time I need to learn enough to wear your face. Soon your closest companions will be time, the Inquisition will be mine."

Fahleon growled. "They'd never-"

Her lips pulled back over her teeth. Victory dripped from the lines around her mouth as she grinned. "Ah, of course. How silly of me to be so confident that I could ever think of turning the people who don't even like you against you? What had he said.... _trust some of us sooner rather than later, because if this goes how I see it happening, you're going to need friends_." Varric's voice spilled from Cassandra's mouth, and Faheon flinched. "That was it, wasn't it? I have to thank you for not listening. It makes this much, much easier."

Fahleon snarled, but it sounded confused and afraid to his ears. He stepped forward, feet unsteady, and the demon waved off his approach before disappearing into another room. He stumbled after and stopped before he could run straight into the table set in the middle of the room. The war room. Cassandra was nowhere to be seen, but her chair was there, pushed back from the head of the table where the maps and reports were lain flat atop it. Scout Harding lifted one from the pile to read its contents to another scout. 

"Our enemies have surrendered unconditionally," she said, and the scout nodded, grinning. 

"The Inquisition's strength rivals that of any kingdom in Thedas!"

"We're strong, but not enough. We wont just rival - we'll take over every human kingdom." Fahleon's ear twitched. It was his voice, but not his words. Take over the shems? What good would that have done, other than to make them hate the elves more? 

"Anger is power. Hate is strength. Revenge is a goal. Isn't it?" Fahleon whirled but the demon wasn't behind him. 

"Not for me." Not for the Inquisition. It was made to stop the Breach, and once it was over he'd return to his clan. He'd kill for them, to protect them, to defend the camp - with his own hands. Sending the Inquisition's forces to do it for him was… Fahleon shook his head. He wouldn't stay in Haven just to see a few more humans fall to the dirt. He wouldn't build an empire. 

"Is that the kind of man you are? A liar? A fool? Don't make that mistake again, Herald. It could burn you a second time."

The demon sounded close. Closer. Fahleon chased after the sound of his voice fading in the distance and he charged forward. Heat blasted his face and stole the breath of his lungs as fire rained from..above. He chanced a glance up and Fahleon's stomach knotted at the bulbous, squirming masses of rot and puss coating the high ceiling. They shook with every rumble of the Fade and they threatened to burst with the Blight inside them. He cursed. The last time he'd seen the Blight had been before his Joining, in the ruins with-

He shut the thought down before the demon read that thought, and he turned for the only room left available. Mages were packed within the walls, standing close, whispering among each other. Some spoke with a wild, fervent adoration in their eyes. Others pulled their shoulders forward, hoping to block others from eavesdropping as they spoke their worries, their suspicion. Frustration from both sides made the room smell like sweat, and Fahleon wrinkled his nose as he shoved through the throng. His skin crawled from the contact, and he kept himself braced for any to be the demon disguised. 

"When the Chant fell, it was the Inquisitor that brought up hope. None would try to rise against him. At least, no one wise." He blocked out the rest of their rumors. The demon's laughter still easily reached him. 

"You can try not to hear, but they can't do the same. What will they say when they learn you don't pay them any mind? Do you think they'll be angry? Hopeless?" Fahleon hunched his shoulders and pressed further in. The air grew thick with the scent of ozone, and he slipped down a different hall before another barrage of Fade fire blocked his path again. "They'll certainly feel strongly, whatever it is. They'll certainly remember it, too, because for when I am you they'll never forgot what you will do to them."

"That's not what I'll do!" Fahleon snapped.

"Oh, so you do have some ideas? I'd love to hear them."

He snarled and turned sharply on his heel to howl at the walls, the floor, the smoke filling the hall from the fires at every turn. This wasn't what he wanted. None of this was what he wanted. A pile of shem bones was well and good, but the point of their deaths meant nothing if it meant his clan wasn't safe. He wasn't looking for fear. Respect or even just a shred of dignity for the Dalish was all. He wanted to go _home._

"I see, so I've taken a wrong approach. You're selfish. How cruel. The masses are meaningless to you, but those you surround yourself with..." The longer the demon talked the more pressure built up behind Fahleon's eyes. A headache pounded across his forehead and he squeezed his eyes shut against it. "Ah, don't look away yet. I have something else you might enjoy. Open your eyes, Herald. I want to see every reaction."

He shook his head but did so, defeated. He was back in the cells beneath Haven, but he was on the other side of the bars this time. Cassandra wasn't pointing her naked sword at his throat, no guards stood watch at every corner, and he wasn't kneeling, chained to the floor. Someone was, however. Sweat had stuck the hair to their pale face, and dust had turned their it to a color as dark as the fur that lined their armored shoulders. Cullen glared through the cell, jaw clenched. Fahleon started forward a step before catching himself. He swallowed.

It wasn't real. A templar would never be imprisoned, not even for the worst crime. They'd raided clans, slain mages, out of fun, out of boredom, and they still walked tall. Cullen was no different. His place would always be above...he'd never....Fahleon clenched his fists, nails digging into the meat of his palm, and he looked away with effort. It was the same. He'd use his own power, not the Inquisition's, to get what he wanted.

Cullen's stern expression split into a smile. "Thank you, Fahleon." Fahleon shivered and he felt sick as Cullen's form shaped from one person to the next. Cassandra's, a servants, even Varric's. The demon ran its fingers along the tattoos that mirrored Fahleon's own. "I know them all, now. The Seeker, the Spymaster, the cook. I know you. But don't you worry. The Elder One has a few plans left for you yet. He wants you to serve him first, just as he wants everyone to. By dying in the right way."

Fahleon lunged at the demon and his fist was left grasping at smoke as it slipped away in the span of a breath. This was its realm, its place of power where it could do anything. Be anything. Make anything. Would Fahleon even know if he was dead or alive? If it could create his memories, how easily could it create reality? 

"Calm down." Fahleon jumped with a snarl and pressed his back to the wall. Another demon. Everything in this damned place was a demon. A fake. Another test that Fahleon never knew the answer to, and whether he was right or wrong only helped the test maker. "Envy is trying to hurt you. Mirrors on mirrors on memories. A face it can feel but not make. I want to help. You are not Envy."

"Stop talking." He wouldn't listen. The voice was young, soft, but he wouldn't fall for it. 

"You think I'm another lie. That's okay. I am Cole. We're inside the Fade, Envy's part of the Fade, where it's strongest. The more Envy tries to talk, to easier it is to hear. It gets a little harder to help, but I can try. To help as well as hear I hope. I heard Envy trying to take your face and I reached out and I was...here. Its voice is stronger here. I heard it hurt-"

"I don't need help." Fahleon headed for the exit, slinking along the wall. The voice had stopped speaking, but he didn't like it had left. His eyes shifted from one corner to the other. He trusted its help no more than the demon's. Even less when it only spoke from the shadows. "Stop hiding."

"I'm not trying to hide. You just won't let you see me. That's okay, too. You don't need to see me for me to help." The wall on the other side of the room rumbled and shook. It burst forward and light spilled into the dim, brighter and more steady than the flickering Fade fire. Fahleon's legs quivered and he fought against the urge to bolt for the escape. It had to be another trap. Another room full of tricks. 

"What's happening outside..." he cleared his throat, "outside my head."

"Everything's frozen. A knife is still falling. The magister is still running. You're friends are still fighting, but slow. Almost not moving. But they're still not safe. It would be better if you leave." In the light, Fahleon caught a shadow out of place. A curled up figure, shoulders pulled forward, hands close to his body. Fahleon stepped around it.

"How."

"All of this is Envy. This room, that room, the first hall and the last hall It stretches to make people, places, power. All you have to do it keep stretching. Keep moving Make more people, more places, Envy stretches too thin. Envy breaks."

Think more, not less. How many faces could Envy make? How many places could it recreate? Haven was a simple task - a few walls, a dungeon, a smattering of clouds. And the Brecillian forest? The trees, taller than mountains, were more than he could count in a lifetime. His clan had dozens of elves, and each one he knew by name. The Wardens, too, and the Deep Roads they'd crawled through. 

The boy laughed, and it sounded nothing like Envy's. Fahleon felt something ease in his chest. "I'm glad I could help."

Fahleon nodded and ducked through the new exit. The walls shook again, all of them this time, with the force of Envy's snarl. It cursed and yelled and Fahleon picked up the pace as it spat threats that sounded too much like promises. The trees he'd imagined grew thin, withered, and the faces of the elves that lived among them became blurred. Unrecognizable. Fahleon bared his teeth in a grin and ran towards the brightening light. Another voice echoed from it, deeper, and even more panicked than Envy's. 

Alexius. The magister

He reached out for the light and hissed. The mark on his hand burned and he felt something hot sting and sizzle. Fahleon smelled burnt flesh but he gripped tight and yanked, hard, on the light. The Fade wrapped around his fingers like a curtain, and he cast it aside. Fahleon's ears popped and he snarled as he fell through, tumbled out of the Fade to smack hard into the tile of Redcliffe Castle. Blood pounded hard and fast in his ears in the sudden silence, and Fahleon was more than relieved to have his face pressed against the dirty floor. If he hadn't known he still wasn't in danger, he would have lain there for a minute, letting it cool his skin.

The magister still stood on the dias, however. Leliana's scouts still stood over the corpses of his soldiers. Fiona, or whatever she had been, was nowhere to be seen. Fahleon climbed to his feet and leveled a glare at Alexius. 

"Was that the best you had?"

"Herald!"

The scouts closest to him rushed forward, and Fahleon growled before they could get closer. Nothing proved to him yet that this still wasn't one of Envy's tricks. Only when Alexius was dead and nothing but ashes would he even begin to think he was safe. Magic still gathered, hot and heavy, in the air, and Fahleon grabbed at it with his hand. Blisters stung his palm and he squeezed, tight. The tear in the Veil closed with a pop and left the room smelling of burnt hair. 

"H-how did you-" Alexius tripped over his own words as readily as he tripped over his feet in his haste to escape. "Now...now you've done it!" He didn't sound confident without his own personal rift. Fahleon snorted.

"I beg to differ." The magister's wide eyes widened further. Fahleon turned to watch a woman march through the chaos. The trailing of her fur-lined dress stained red as she stepped through the pools of blood to stand in front of the dias. Fahleon didn't recognize her, but he recognized the feeling of power. The mark on his hand didn't itch. Whoever she was, it wasn't another demon. "How surprised I was to hear that the mages had sided with a magister. How even more surprised I was when I heard he'd taken a liking to Redcliffe." She crossed her arms and tapped a finger against her skin. "I'm going to ask you to leave. Immediately. The mages as well."

"Queen Anora, if I may-"

Her glare was icy enough to rival Cassandra's. It was enough to freeze any more words on Leliana's tongue. "I wanted to help you, I truly did. But after this..." She shook her head. "I need them gone before word gets out and everything is turned against us. Again."

Fahleon caught Leliana's look and he scuffed his foot against the floor. "What do you say about them joining the Inquisition?"

The Queen's glare lifted just a shade. "I only want them out of Redcliffe. What happens to them after is up to...well." 

Fahleon nodded. This was that they came for in the first place. They knew it wouldn't have gone smoothly, but it could have gone...better. He let out a breath. "Get the mages moving. We'll be waiting in Haven."


	17. Chapter 17

"-and even after the quarter arrangements are made, there are still more precautions to take. We aren't ready to house the entire rebel mage army."

"It was our goal, was it not? We will make it work."

"It was hastily planned, is all I mean."

Fahleon ground his teeth as Cullen and Cassandra bickered between themselves. They'd been talking in circles since Josephine pulled him from bed at sunrise to discuss the next steps in sealing the Breach. No progress was made, no solution was found, and Fahleon found his mind wandering. His attention wavered and he jerked in his seat at the sound of footsteps approaching from outside. Every sudden noise made him wary. The slap of wind against the windows to make them rattle and the timbers of the ceiling shake made his stomach roll. Sudden conversation made his ears ring. The door opened with a knock and Fahleon gripped the edge of the war table tight as a servant entered with a tray of fruit. 

"The position we're in now...we have to be prepared for abomin- for anything."

"If we rescind the alliance we made, it makes the Inquisition - and the Herald - appear incompetent," Josephine said, rising from her seat to clear space for the tray. Cullen snorted. 

"That's the least of our concerns at the moment."

"But it is no light matter. At best, our next steps could make us look only foolish. At worst, it may make us look tyrannical."

She cast uneasy eyes at him as Fahleon followed her movements with suspicion. There had yet to be any hint of Envy since the magister had been led away in chains, but he still wasn't fully convinced. Time, and possibly the sight of Alexius, bound and caged in the dungeons like a mockery of the demon's attempts to attack him helped and yet....Fahleon twitched at the flash of green that lit up the skies outside and made the room's candles flicker. It was a weak glow, nothing like the bright, sickly shine of the Fade. Fahleon eased out a breath. 

"Herald? Herald. Fahleon!"

Fahleon flinched and his knee hit the underside of the table hard. He cursed and glared at Cullen, looking at him where he leaned over the newest of his men's reports. Leliana was gone. A hand fell on Fahleon's shoulder and he scrambled out of his chair, knocking it over in his haste. The spymaster was behind him, a knife held tight in her grip. She lifted it at him, level with his ribs and Fahleon snarled. Any movement forward would put him in the path of her blade and any back would pin him against the table with no room for escape. Cassandra guarded the door and-

He flicked his eyes back to Leliana. He snatched her wrist as she finally advanced and slammed her hand on the table. Her fingers splayed, empty, on the map sprawled across it. There was no knife. His brow twitched. Slowly, almost delicately, Leliana peeled his fingers from their tight grip around her home and he fisted his hands at his sides before she noticed them shaking. 

Cullen swept an arm out in front of him. "This is exactly what I'm taking about. He could be possessed as we speak and we'd have no way of knowing-"

"I'm not," Fahleon spat. Anger made his lips numb and his conviction fell flat from his tongue. He dug his nails into his palms. He wasn't possessed. Envy was....gone. And wouldn't be returning. The Inquisition would work with the mages on equal footing because he had no mind to control anyone. He would work with Cassandra to finish the business of closing the Breach and go home to live his life. He didn't want power, he didn't control. Envy had pushed and he hadn't relented. Cullen could push and Fahleon wouldn't give. Cassandra could try as well to get him to lead but he was not-

"Trapped. Here and there. Real is...both. But you are here."

"By the Maker!" Cullen rounded the table and the sound of his sword pulled free of its sheath was echoed by Cassandra's. Blood dripped from their points to stain the floor and Fahleon shook his head to clear the vision from his sight. His breath quickened and he staggered towards the boy who'd appeared on top of the table in the blink of an eye, all without entering through the door or disturbing the papers strewn about. "Get away from that - from that thing!"

Creators, he'd have loved the idea of leaving the boy behind. But he needed answers. 

"Thing? My name is Cole. I came back with you to help," he said, and his wide eyes turned from the Commander to Cassandra and finally fell on Fahleon. Fahleon looked away, clenching his jaw. "I would have told you before but you were...." Fahleon hunched his shoulders. "Busy."

His scowl slipped and he replaced with a less than solid frown. "Is that what you call it."

Cassandra hadn't moved closer, but he hadn't put away his sword, either. "Don't tell me you know of this...Cole."

Fahleon pressed his lips, tight, together, and answered with only a curt nod. She didn't look any more pleased, but her arm twitched, once, before she let out a breath and sheathed her sword. Her flat look demanded an explanation, later, that Fahleon wouldn't give her. 

Cullen remained where he stood, braced and ready. "No, call the guards. This creature isn't what it seems."

"I'm not like them," Cole said. "A corner of the Circle, cried of pain and fear louder than cries for help but if I keep shouting...." Cullen paled. "This isn't the Circle. It's not the Fade, either."

Fahleon looked away and muttered under his breath. "How do you know?" He caught Cassandra raise a brow and he looked away from her, too."

"Because it hurts."

"What do you mean, demon?" Cullen asked, and Fahleon curled his lip. 

"Nothing." Fahleon cleared his throat and righted the chair. He didn't meet any of their eyes as he hid his shaking hands. He wouldn't have this debate here, in front of them all. Cole could be a demon in truth, but he had enough of them on his mind without one more. And if he himself was possessed? That had crossed his thoughts more than once....not that he would admit it. At least, not when Cullen's sword was still bare and ready to cut any abomination in half. Fahleon included. 

He wasn't. He hoped. He let out a shaky breath. One more time. He'd question Alexius one more time, demand proof even it meant spilling his life blood to make sure. 

Cole opened his mouth and Fahleon glared at him, braced to defend himself from whatever came out of his mouth next, but the boy only yawned and rubbed at one eye. Fahleon didn't relax. The careful eyes on him made him all the more furious. He needed to get out of the room.

"Don't attack the mages." That was what they were all gathered together for in the first place, to discuss what to do with the influx of new inhabitants. Haven couldn't hold them all comfortably. There'd be shoulders rubbing and nerves crossed, and not just his. "Or Cole," he added. 

"What will we do about-"

"This isn't the Circle," Fahleon snapped, and he winced as he repeated Cole. Cullen's face turned red. Fahleon moved towards the door but Cullen tossed an arm out to stop him. "No templars," he growled, and shoved past.

"We can have some of Leliana's men watch the perimeter of Fiona's camp," Josephine suggested, half-heartedly.

"They aren't trained to fight against magic," Cullen argued, voice loud even as Fahleon put distance between himself and the war room.

"I think that's the point, Commander," Leliana said. "I'll see it done. In the meantime..."

Someone called for Fahleon as he left the Chantry, and he let their greeting disappear behind him as he walked back to his cabin. Marched. Stomped. He most certainly hadn't run. Like some frightened deer, spooked by a shadow seen out of the corner of his eye. Fahleon swallowed back a curse and slipped through the door, pressing his back against it to force it close with a solid sound. He felt it in his spine and only felt the tension knotting in his stomach unwind as it finished shuddering through him. 

The sheets on the bed had been changed and they stretched tight across the straw-filled mattress. There was a new stack of wood in the corner and the ashes in the fireplace were swept clean. It made the place look even less lived in. For some reason, it didn't make him feel any better. 

He hadn't slept within its walls since the night he'd woken from the first attempt to close the Breach. He preferred the trees around the servants tents, where the presence of so many elves put him at ease and the constant motion and noise reminded him of home. The smaller cabin he'd found on the edge of the lake was another favorite spot, and he'd stopped there only once after to rest after a hunt. Lately, he hadn't slept at all. 

Most of his belongings were stuffed into a bag by the door, ready for him to grab at a moment's notice to run - either away or towards the next fight. His bow was slung on a hook above it, and he strapped its quiver to his belt before shouldering the bow. He crossed the room and held an arm out for Ada to perch on instead of the bedpost. Her weight grounded him, kept his feet on the floor. If there was any sign that he was in the present, that everything around him was real, it was her. No demon could try to replicate Ada without him noticing the difference. He ran a finger down the feathers of her neck, and he relaxed despite the sharp beak that snapped at his fingers. He'd spend another night at the cabin by the lake. He could shake off the last of the demon's influence in the quiet solitude there, and Ada could stretch her wings after the day spent cooped inside. A hunt sounded good. The feel of his bow in his hands and the night air in his lungs would do him better than any spoken word from a ghost.

Fahleon picked up his bag. He'd pick his way around Haven and circle around the kitchen tents from the back, out of sight and out of range of questions. 

The door knob turned before he reached for it and Fahleon tensed. He shifted his weight and let his hand fall to rest among the fletching of his arrows at his side. He curled a finger around one and pressed his back against the wall, eyes never leaving the door.

The scent of roasted meat and vegetables wafted in the room above the common smell of cold, snow, and smoke. Metal clinked softly together, dull and too solid for any sort of blade. Fahleon narrowed his eyes and wedged his foot into the sudden, small opening of the door and kicked at the leg that tried to push it open. 

"It's not rotten this time." His ear twitched the familiar voice and Fahleon removed his foot with a sigh. The servant girl stumbled in, just barely holding onto her food trays as she righted herself. He didn't move to help her while he set them down on the dresser. She turned when she finished, hands on her hips. 

The demon was getting more daring - or desperate - if it was recreating Raya's face. 

She brushed down her apron with a snort. "This isn't the Fade, you know." Fahleon looked away when she tried to meet her eyes. How many knew? Leliana had seen his return with her own eyes, but he hadn't told her where his mind had wandered off too while she took down the magister's men. The report he'd given Cassandra when he came back to Skyhold with the mages was even less descriptive. Cole was the only one who'd taken part in his....nightmare, and today was the first he'd been seen in the days since. How had they found out? He clenched his fist. He'd break the jaw of whoever spoke of his....uncertainty. He'd dare anyone else to say something more, after.

Raya did, without flinching. "You're safe here."

"So I hear." His tongue felt like sandpaper in his mouth.

"You're welcome," she said, without any shame, and Fahleon felt himself flush. "I'm a mage. We can tell our dreams from being awake, and if I'm awake..." She held up a hand and pointed at him with a spoon dripping with gravy. "You look like you're about to say 'but that's something a demon would say!'."

He clenched his jaw hard enough his jaw hurt. He needed to get out of Haven, and soon, before someone else read him as easily. 

Raya tossed a roll towards him and he snatched it out of the air with a growl. He picked it apart in silence, and stepped away from the pile of crumbs when Raya threw a chunk of meat to the floor for Ada. 

"That thing on your hand," Raya continued, and Fahleon rolled his eyes. It wasn't any better choice of conversation than the talk of demons in his opinion, and the way she looked at his hand as he pulled apart the roll made himself too aware of his current position in the cabin. He shifted his weight uneasily. "It's like a magic I've never seen before."

Solas had said something similar. Before the demon-

Dread wolf take him. Fahleon shoved what was left of the roll in his mouth and reached for another, dipping it forcefully into the gravy first. It splashed over the rim of the shallow bowl to stain the sleeve of his shirt, and he cursed. One more mention of the Fade and he'd truly lose his senses.

"Get out."

"I only-"

He took a step closer. "Get. Out."

Raya lifted her hands, empty, and backed towards the door. Fahleon watched her leave with narrowed eyes, and he swore when the door swung open, again, with another person standing just outside. Persons. The sight of Varric lessened some of his suspicion, and he turned his wary eyes on the boy with him.

The dwarf, at least, wasn't phased by the sight of an angry Dalish elf.

"I heard the Inquisitor was in need of a distraction."


End file.
